


The Dreamer and the Bookkeeper

by othellia



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Origin Story, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reincarnation, Romance, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-04-18 01:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 91,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4687673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/othellia/pseuds/othellia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A labyrinth origin story.</p><p>Eight years after Sarah defeats the labyrinth, Karen falls ill. Jareth is the only one with the power to heal her but refuses to help his former foe. With no other choice, Sarah begins to investigate just exactly how Jareth became the ruler of the labyrinth and if his power can somehow become hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tale of Sarah: Part One

Sarah never liked hospital hallways. The off-color white that drenched their walls and permeated the air always made her feel like her soul was getting sucked away. As she sat on a waiting bench watching various doctors and nurses scuttle by, the unpleasantness wrapped around her skin, making her almost dizzy with claustrophobia.

Next to her sat Toby with his new Game Boy in his hands. The power was off, his eyes staring blankly at the opposite wall.

After several minutes, their father lumbered slowly out of the room. Sarah and Toby stood up at once, but held their distance as Karen's doctor followed him shortly after. The two men bent their heads as they exchanged a few last words. She felt Toby's hand thread into hers. They stood, silent, until the doctor finally gave their father a solemn pat on the shoulder before walking away.

Toby moved first, dragging Sarah behind him. The little eight-year-old had more muscle than most people gave him credit for, although right now Sarah wasn't giving him much resistance.

"Dad,” Toby said. “What did the doctor say? Is Mom going to be okay?"

Their father turned slowly to face them, suddenly looking a lot older than he had just an hour ago. He opened his mouth to say something, then paused to swallow. Sarah felt Toby's grip tighten.

"Toby… Sarah… it seems your mother is going to be staying in the hospital for longer than we originally thought."

* * *

She'd graduated from college earlier that year, but - with her wonderful decision to major in history - jobs hadn't exactly lined themselves up at her doorstep. And so Sarah had received her diploma only to move straight back in with her parents, working part-time at the local supermarket while considering the potential expenses of grad school and sending out as many resumes as she could physically print.

At least she got to volunteer at the library over the weekends. That continued to be sort of fun. She couldn't help the annoying, wistful pang that sometimes flared up whenever she had to re-shelve books in the fantasy section. 

Still, her life was good.

Sarah had to keep telling herself that. Sure, things hadn't gone exactly the way she'd hoped in her head, but that’s what fantasies were. Just… fantasies. Sometimes she just had to remind herself that life didn't always give her what she wanted when she wanted it.

Plus, there had been _some_ upsides. Like… she got to hang out with Toby more.

The little tyke had grown on her over the years. When she'd finally left for college, she'd actually cried over the fact that she wouldn't be there for him as much anymore. Her relationships with both Karen and her father had improved as well. They'd finally become a family.

And then the first doctor's visit had happened.

Karen had been having a bit of trouble breathing over the past couple months, so they'd scheduled an appointment. At first it had been a simple checkup. Then had come the x-rays, followed by the referral to the specialist which took another several weeks of waiting.

The preliminary report had been harrowing enough on its own.

Cancer.

A few more visits with their family doctor became a hunt to find an available specialist. Despite her family's concerns, the various doctors and nurses had seemed to bend over backwards, saying that it was still in an early stage, that everything was going to be fine. And Sarah had almost believed them...

Until today.

Sarah flopped onto her bed, fingers running through her dark hair as she surveyed her old room. When she'd gone off to college, her father and Karen had converted it into a guest bedroom. Hardly any of her old things remained.

Her bookshelves were gone, replaced with a small table barely big enough to fit the vase resting on it. A Monet replica hung on the wall above. Her old white nightstand had been switched out for a cherry-stained one. The dated floral wallpaper was still the same. Karen had been talking about replacing it for years but had never gotten that far in her renovations.

Now Sarah was forced to wonder if she ever would…

No. She didn't want to think about that.

Feeling a storm of tears coming on, Sarah grabbed a pillow from over her head and buried her face against it as she rolled ungracefully onto her stomach. Once her breathing was under control again, she turned her head to her right. Her old desk and mirror stood against the wall, two of the few pieces remaining from her teenage years.

All through high school, Sarah used to call on her friends through that mirror. She still talked to them from time to time, but the location varied. Any mirror worked when it came right down to it.

Fat load of good that did her now though. Sarah sighed and clutched the pillow closer to her face.

Karen was in the hospital and her family had no idea when or even _if_ she'd be able to come home. A mistake, the doctor had said. An extra spot on the x-rays that none of them had noticed before. A spot that changed everything.

What was the good of being able to talk to mythical creatures through mirrors when Karen's life was at stake?

Sarah gripped the pillow tight against her chest. What good was _any_ of it? She raised the pillow up, ready to fling it at the wall. What good was magic when it couldn't even-

Sarah froze.

What good was magic when it couldn't even help? When had she decided that? True, she'd never heard of any of the goblins having healing powers before, but that didn't mean they didn’t exist.

She lowered the pillow, taking as many deep breaths as possible.

Of course she couldn't get her hopes up. She had no guarantee that any of the goblins would help, that any of them would be able to help… and yet a small possibility began to take root in the back of her head. Her heart began to race like it hadn't in years.

Sarah crept over to her old desk and sat down, brushing back a few loose strands of hair as she faced the mirror.

"Hoggle, I need you."

It took only a few seconds before her old, stout friend materialized in the glass plane before her. Once he did, Sarah realized how tightly she'd been holding onto everything inside of her. The past few weeks began to flood out. Watery eyes became silent tears, and silent tears became giant sobs as she pushed herself through each day.

"And I know that I never had the best relationship with her when I was young, but I really do think of her like my mother now. And even more than that, she's Toby's mother, and I don't even want to begin to imagine what he'll have to go through, what he is going through and… oh, Hoggle. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I _can_ do."

She hiccuped slightly as she rubbed her sleeve against her eyes in her seventh futile attempt to dry them.

Her friend lifted one of his gnarled hands as if to pat her shoulder, but stopped halfway, his hand coming to rest on the invisible barrier that divided their two worlds.

"Sarah…" Hoggle said, his brows lowering in sympathy. “I’d… I'd love to help, but-"

"Please don't say that no one in labyrinth can. There are so many of you. Surely someone has the power."

"Well, yes. You could say there is someone…”

Sarah's sniffles quieted as she slowly blinked at the old dwarf.

Surely it couldn't be this easy.

But just as her heart started to swell with hope, she noticed the tell-tale signs of one of his half-lies. A twitch of his right hand, the quick glance upwards… He wasn't telling her the whole story. Sarah wiped her eyes one last time and leaned forward.

"Someone," she repeated, insistently. "What kind of someone? Who is it?"

"Oh…” his brows furrowed together as his hands continued to fidget. "You can very well guess who."

"The Goblin King?"

"Ssh!" Hoggle hissed. He glanced around to see if anyone or anything was watching. As with all their conversations, Sarah felt it better not to mention that the king had ways of magically keeping on eye on his subjects. Normally she humored the old dwarf, dancing around the point of a conversation with conspiratorial paranoia, but Sarah didn't have time to waste today.

"You really think he has the power to heal my step-mother?"

"Think? Oh, I've seen him drag creatures back from death's door itself. But the price… trust me, you're better off without him."

"Hoggle, she's my step-mother. She's Toby's _mother_. The price isn't an issue."

"You say that now. Wait until after he has you in his grip."

A flicker of doubt coiled in her mind. She quickly squashed it back down. "I've beat him once," she said. "He has no power over me.”

"And you think the best way to treat that advantage is to ask him for a favor? Might as well sign over your soul on a golden platter."

"You've never talked about him like this before," Sarah said, slightly unnerved by Hoggle's hostile manner. "It's always chicken coups and the latest goblin unfortunate enough to get tossed in the bog."

"That's because it's always been about just him and us. We're his subjects, comes with the whole 'living in the labyrinth' thing. You on the other hand." Hoggle paused, as if carefully considering his next words. "Sure you talk to us a lot, but you've kept yourself out of his control. To tell the truth, that's the best place you can be. You see, he's still…”

Hoggle paused again, this time to glance around several more times before leaning in close to the mirror. When he spoke again, it was in a gruff whisper. "He's still bitter you know, even after all these years. Some say he'd do _anything_ to get you in his debt again."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "That's why they're called favors," she said eventually. "People do them as gifts for one another. The point is that you don't owe the other person anything afterwards… technically."

"It's not the technical part that worries me."

Sarah bit her lip, thinking it through.

On one side was an immortal, magical, goblin king who apparently hated her just as much as she liked to laugh at him. On the other side was Karen, her condition only worsening with each passing day.

Hoggle had always given her good counsel before and very few things frightened him in the labyrinth like the wrath of his king, but she couldn't completely listen to his this time. Not when the king seemed to be her only option.

"Alright," she said as she took a deep breath. "I know you're only looking out for me, but I have to ask him. For Karen's sake... and Toby's as well. But I promise that I won't agree to anything if he starts making serious terms or if it's worded weirdly or anything like that at all. At least, not until I consult with you three. Is that okay?"

Hoggle let out a soft, reluctant grumble. "I still don't like the idea of you have anything to do with him at all," he muttered. "But I can understand why you have to."

"Thank you," Sarah said, a smile finally breaking onto her face. She lifted her own hand against the glass, spreading out her fingers as her palm reached the edge. Hoggle glanced at it briefly before looking away. Blatant signs of friendship still embarrassed him after all these years.

She resisted the urge to draw a heart on the glass, knowing the smudges from her finger would stick on the other side for several days before beginning to fade. Instead she leaned back and took a deep breath of fresh air before settling her hands in her lap.

"Now,” she said. “How do I summon him without wishing anyone away in the process?"

"You mean you don't know?"

Sarah shrugged. "All I know about the labyrinth I learned from that book of mine. And even the things I learned from that didn't work out the way they were supposed to," she said, remembering how the archaic rhyme she'd quoted had done absolutely nothing.

"It's all rather simple, when you get down to it. Despite his majesty's love for…”

"Glitter?" Sarah supplied.

“…the dramatic, when it comes to business he's always been the type to get straight to the point. Just wish for him to show up and he probably will… as long as he feels like it.” Hoggle crossed his arms. “Then again, it also helps that it'll be you'll be the one doing the calling."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sarah asked suspiciously.

"You see, well, it's like I told you. Even after all these years, your whole time here in the labyrinth is a rather touchy subject. We usually avoid talking about you around him less we want to get dipped in the bog."

"I see he's still as much of sore loser as ever."

"And you might not want to say those kinds things around him, seeing as how you _are_ trying to get his help for free."

"Very true," Sarah said with a slight sniff of self-importance. "I will try my best to keep a civil tongue."

"As I was saying, he's still not very fond of you. Wary even, though for what I don’t know. The point is that… well, ever since you got back he's been kind of keeping a loose eye on you. Almost waiting for you to summon him back into your world."

"What."

"I told you," Hoggle said as though those three words explained everything. "It's best not to go meddling in things you've managed to stay clear of so far." He let out a sigh. "But - like you said - it's the only way. I'll go ahead and find the others for when you call back. Remember. Not an agreement on _any_ deal until all three of us have heard it first. Even something that seems innocent to you could have big consequences down here. Don't take anything for granted. Nothing at all."

The dwarf stuck his hands in his pockets and began to wander off.

"Hoggle, wait!"

But her friend had already vanished, the mirror's image fading to reflect only her own tear-stained face. She considered calling him back, but he had his work cut out for him finding her other friends.

And she had her own tasks at hand.

Sarah still wasn't sure how to quite feel about the fact that Jareth had been watching her.. or rather "keeping a loose eye on" as Hoggle had described it.

She hoped he wasn't able to spy on her with the crystals he used to keep tabs on the labyrinth. Most likely he couldn't. Hoggle had told her once that their power extended only to the edges of the labyrinth. Most of his powers extended only to the edges of the labyrinth.

Hoggle definitely seemed sure that the king hated her though. It was the first time he’d directly talked about the king. Whenever Jareth came up in a conversation with _any_ of her friends, they were all rather good at redirecting to some other interesting topic.

For not the first time, Sarah wondered if she was the first ever to beat the labyrinth.

With the labyrinth and its inhabitants as old as they were, it didn't seem possible that she was the first. That is, from a basic probability stand point there _had_ to have been others before her… but her victory was another topic that tended to get derailed whenever it came up.

If the Goblin King truly hated her, was it because of that? Or was there some other mysterious reason she hadn't discovered yet?

If he did hate her, perhaps this was all just a giant waste of time.

But no matter how much she contemplated her situation, it all boiled down into two simple points.

Karen was dying, and Jareth had the power to help.

With that in mind, Sarah stood up from her desk. With one shaky hand, she drew a heart on the mirror anyways. When she'd been talking to Hoggle, summoning the Goblin King to ask for a favor had seemed like a piece of cake. However, now that she was about to say the words - _choose your right words_ \- she needed all the self-encouragement she could muster.

"I wish the Goblin King would be here," Sarah said. "Right now."

Her fingers gripped tightly onto the back of her chair as the last two words left her mouth. She could almost taste the way they tumbled out, escaping into the air like a messed-up telephone message you could never erase.

"And to what do I owe this delayed pleasure?"

Sarah whipped around to see _him_ lounging on her bed, foot hooked over one knee as he stared at her with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Tearing her gaze away from his face, she watched as his fingers ghosted over the pillow she'd been crying on earlier. She briefly wondered if he could feel the dampness. Sarah felt the urge to touch her cheeks - they had to still be red; he had to know that she'd been crying - but resisted, curling her fingers into tight fists instead.

"I wanted to ask you for a favor," she said stiffly.

His eyes narrowed slightly at that.

"I don't usually 'do' favors," he said in clipped tones. "Not without a promise of something in return and _especially_ not for my enemies."

"Well… for an enemy, your subjects are still rather friendly to me.”

He glared at her.

"That only makes you a more annoying enemy."

"Look, while I've love to take the time and muse on the exact nature of our relationship,” Sarah said impatiently, “I didn't ask you here for my personal sake. Will you help or not?"

That was apparently the wrong thing to have said. Jareth scowled, pushing himself off her bed.

"Very well," he said, stopping directly in front of her. His leather jacket crinkled as he crossed his arms. "What do you desire so much that you'd wish me here after all these years?"

Her stomach dropped at the disdain in his eyes. Sarah felt herself begin to take an involuntary step back, but caught herself in time. She locked both her feet firmly in place and forced herself to meet his eyes.

"Karen is very sick," Sarah said as calmly as possible. "Our doctor says that there isn't much that he can do. I'd appreciate it if you could heal her. Please."

She doubted that he'd be one to be swayed by a bit of tacked on courtesy, but it didn't hurt.

Jareth stared at her, one eyebrow slowly raising as he continued to examine her face. She tried to keep his eyes locked with his, but there was something about his close proximity that gnawed at her soul. Her stomach dropped even further. Cursing herself for her lack of endurance, she glanced away. She could still see the faint heart on her mirror where she'd traced it.

Fat load of good it was giving her now.

"Karen is… your stepmother?"

The question was purely inquisitive, blank of any external emotion. She glanced at him briefly, noting his calm expression before looking down. He was still wearing that weird pendant of his.

"Yes."

"Toby's mother."

"Yes."

"And I take that she is dying? Or rather, dying faster than the rest of you mortals do?"

"Yes," Sarah said gritted out through her teeth.

She fought the urge to slam her fists into his side. She needed him; she had to remain civil. Perhaps he was simply gauging how much magic the deed would require. She could give him the benefit of the doubt for that.

She could also slam her knee out and up.

"Not interested," Jareth said, casually spinning around as he walked away.

"What?!"

He paused halfway across her room and looked at her from over his shoulder. "I find nothing to gain in it, therefore I am not interested."

"But Toby-"

"Ceased to be my concern after you rescued him and destroyed half of my labyrinth in the process."

"What are you talking about? Aside from that one Escher room, I never destroyed anything,” Sarah said. “And don't think that I'm saying that out of denial, because I'm not. I've talked with hundreds of different goblins and other creatures since that night and not one- Wait, why am I even getting into this? This is about Karen, not me."

"Yes, yes. So you have said."

Sarah forced herself to take a deep breath.

"Alright, fine. You win," she said. His back was still turned to her. "I'll make a deal with you. Just say what you want. You can have anything."

That got his attention. He smoothly turned back around, a feral grin on his face.

Sarah belatedly remembered Hoggle's words. Perhaps her friend had been right. Perhaps the price _would_ be too high. She imagined her friends together, waiting beyond the mirror for her to call them. Imagining them there didn't change the fact that they weren't here now.

"Anything?"

Sarah forced herself to think of Karen. Of Toby.

"Name your price," she said cautiously. "And then I'll decide."

"Hmm…” He glanced at the ceiling, taking his time with his decision. “I choose… nothing."

His words hit her like a punch in the gut.

What was happening?

This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

"Excuse me?" she asked, still in disbelief at his completely flippant demeanor.

Difficulty, yes. Sarah expected that. He'd never been one to make things easy. Eventual bargaining had been almost a certainty. Despite her inclination to try and believe the best in everyone, even _she_ knew better than to think that the Goblin King would do something like this for free. That was the point of haggling though; one would start off low in the hopes that prices wouldn't climb too high.

But of all the possible things, she would've never expected complete and utter _disinterest_.

"You heard me clear enough," Jareth said. "You, Sarah Williams, have nothing that I desire, nothing about you that would be worth the price of your step-mother's life. And, if that is all you wished me here for, then I will be taking my leave."

"But you can't!" she cried out, grabbing for the sleeve of his jacket as he started to fade. Her fingers merely slipped through his arm. He stared at her as he took a step back before re-materializing.

"Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?" He sneered as she tried to take a step forward. Sarah froze as the full weight of his derision struck her. "For a mortal you sure are assured of your own importance. I already told you that I have no desire to deal with you. I'd advise you to instead direct your wishes towards someone who cares."

And before she could say anything else, he vanished.

Sarah stood there, alone, in her old bedroom. She replayed the details of their conversation over and over again in her head. Her eyes were clear as she stared blankly at the opposite wall, too much in shock to cry.

Nothing to offer.

Assured of her own importance.

Not even worthy of a deal.

"Hoggle, I need you!" Sarah yelled as she yanked her desk chair back and slammed herself down in it. She crossed her arms, muttering streams of curses under her breath as shock slowly began to ebb into fury.

When Hoggle appeared in her mirror again, he was flanked by her two other friends. Didymus began to smile, his whiskers twitching in friendly greeting, but it faded after one look at Sarah’s face. Ludo's reflection barely fit, the mirror's frame cutting him off at mid-nose, but his mouth seemed to be in a neutral position.

"I take it that things did not fare well, my lady?" the old fox terrier ventured.

“Ugh! Who is he anyway to put his stupid ego above someone else's life? You'd never see _me_ deny someone else common decency, _especially_ if it was a matter of life and death!"

"His majesty didn't like the idea of a favor?" Hoggle asked.

"He didn't even like the idea of a deal," Sarah said bitterly, pounding her fist against the hard surface of the desk. The pain fanned out through her bottom knuckles, but she easily ignored it. "He said I have nothing to offer. What a pack of lies! I'm Sarah Williams," she said, gesturing to herself. "I'm the one that beat his stupid labyrinth. If I don't have anything to offer, who does?"

"I see…” Hoggle said, looking mildly pensive.

"He hasn't heard the last of me though. You said he keeps an eye on me from time to time? Well, let me tell you. It's going to real interesting for him soon because… because I'll do something. Something he'll regret. Who does he think he is?"

"Well," Hoggle said. "He is the king."

"Horrible excuse for a king if you ask me."

"Perhaps he just wasn't feeling good. Threw four goblins-"

"Five," Ludo rumbled, his hand extending as he counted each finger.

"Five goblins," Hoggle corrected. "In the bog yesterday. Perhaps something's just on his mind."

" _'Something'_ is not a reason to be a terrible person! I don't care if he woke up this morning with the stomach flu. You don't turn your back on someone like this. Not if you have a soul anyway."

"He’s… his majesty's a complicated person."

“And I can't even believe that you're defending him, Hoggle! What would an immortal git like him… what does he know about human pain and suffering? What has he ever lost?!"

"Many things, my lady," Didymus said softly, his eyes downcast.

Sarah froze in mid-rant. She slowly turned her attention to the small fox terrier.

"What- What's that supposed to mean?"

She stared at Didymus, waiting for an answer, but he remained silent. She turned to Ludo, but since she couldn't see the top part of his face it didn't do much good. She shifted her attention to Hoggle. The old dwarf’s eyes were already focused at the ground.

"You're really trying to tell me that he understands what I'm going through? Don't you all realize how ridiculous that sounds? You've all told me yourselves, he's been ruling the labyrinth for thousands of years. And you see, that's the thing about human pain. To even begin to understand it, he’d have to have been…”

She trailed off, instantly recognizing the guilty looks on their faces. It was the look they always shared when she stumbled across a topic they didn't want her exploring. Her eyes widened.

"He was human once," she said simply, the concept having trouble taking root in her head. Didymus and Hoggle separately looked at her, only to turn away from her questing eyes. "Didymus! Ludo! Hoggle! What do you know about this? What _have_ you known about this? You have to tell me!"

"I don't know nothing," Hoggle said, having difficulties with trying to look at her while avoiding her eyes. "All of it happened before my time."

"All of what?"

Hoggle squirmed beneath her gaze. Didymus frowned and wrung his hands together before looking away.

"All of what happened," Hoggle eventually said. "That is… how you-know-who became you-know-what."

"Let me get this straight," Sarah said. All sorts of new possibilities were beginning to run through her head. “Mr. Royal Tightpants was human once. He was a human just like me, a human without magic. And now... now he's immortal and can make illusions and potentially cure cancer. Don't you know what this means? I don't _need_ him to help Karen." Her face brightened. "All I have to do is get my own magic."

"That won't work," Didymus said.

"Why not?" Sarah said. "All I need to do is find-"

"My lady…”

"-the same source of magic that he found and-"

"My _lady_ …”

"What?" Sarah asked, slightly annoying at the interruption of her reverie.

And then she looked at Didymus, truly looked at him. The smile that had been creeping up her face fell as she took in the gaunt faces of her three friends.

"The king wasn't given magic," Didymus said. "He took it."


	2. The Tale of Jareth: Part One

It wasn't the friendliest game of tag the two boys were playing around the inn's courtyard. The elder boy was nearly twelve and at the start of his path to knighthood, his muscles already strengthening from increased training. At first glance it seemed like he had the advantage, his brawny frame towering over that of his younger brother's.

But then the younger one would duck, would dodge, his thin figure almost in a dance as he weaved back and forth just out of his older brother's range. His pale blond hair whipped around his face in the wind, and he let out a laugh as his older brother extended himself too far and tumbled over his shorter legs into the muddy ground.

"Don't you dare laugh!" the older one growled, wiping the muck from his cheek.

"What are you going to do, Edric?" the younger brother asked with a smile, albeit from a safe distance. "Wish me away to the goblins?"

"Goblins?" Edric picked himself off the ground and wrinkled his nose at the muck on his trousers before turning his attention back to his brother. "What nonsense have you been picking up from the locals this time?"

"It's not nonsense!" the younger boy said, clenching his fists. "There's this woman that they talk about, a witch, and she takes children and turns them into goblins. Only she doesn't steal them. People have to wish them to her away first."

"A considerate goblin witch?” Edric snorted. "What rubbish. Honestly I don't know why you listen to them. Perhaps Father and I should leave you here when we move on. You certainly would fit in well enough."

"Take that back!" the younger one said. "You're only saying that because you're too stupid to remember stories, let alone come up with your own." He paused, seeing the sudden glower on his brother's face. In hindsight, he shouldn't have ignored it. "Personally I think it's a good story," he muttered.

"You do, do you? Well," Edric said, "if that's what you really think, I wish the goblins _would_ take you away. Right now."

The younger brother heard a brief cackle from behind a nearby bush, and then everything went dark.

* * *

Gareth slowly blinked his eyes, the world gradually coming back into focus. He was lying down, his head propped up on something soft, a cool pressure dabbing at his forehead.

He blinked again. A black-haired woman was leaning over him, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth.

"Who are you?" he whispered, still groggy from whatever had just happened. "Where am I?"

Rather than answer, the woman simply smiled at him in silence. Gareth turned his head away from her touch, taking in the rest of the room.

It was some kind of a dining hall, a large feast set out on a long table in the center of the room, but it was so unlike the dining halls at both his father's castle and those of the surrounding lords. This room was light and airy. The white walls and floors - where they weren't covered by elaborate tiled pictures - reflected the sunlight as it streamed in between archaic pillars and open windows. No glass, no shutters, just an open invitation to the elements. Glancing up, he saw that the ceiling had been built the same way; a large circle was cut out in the center, the remaining white stone painted with the walls an elaborate maze.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of black curls. The strange woman was still sitting next to him.

He attempted to stand, but another wave of dizziness caught him and he stumbled.

"Take your time," she said, speaking at last as she helped him back down to the strangle reclining half-bench, half-bed he'd been laying on. "You have thirteen hours before you'll be going anywhere unless, of course, your brother can make it through my labyrinth before then. I must admit though, my hopes are not high for him."

Her face darkened, and she walked away.

“The ones who rely on brute force are always the weakest in the end," she continued. “Wit and knowledge, for those who choose to master them, have always been the superior weapons.”

Gareth sat up further to get a better look at the woman. She was standing by one of the open windows, her profile to him. Her long black hair, lightly curled, trailed all the way down her back over a loose, white gown that blended into the floor below. A strange golden pendant hung around her neck. Her red lips curled into a half smile as she leaned forward, her long fingers splaying out over the white stone. She looked... ageless.

"Who are you?" Gareth asked for the second time.

The woman turned, mock offense plastered over her face. "I can't believe that you haven't figured it out yet," she said, clutching one hand to her chest. "And after all the stories your brother said you told of me."

Her words clicked in the back of his mind.

"You're the Goblin Queen," Gareth said calmly.

She smiled again, her hand lowering as she walked back from the window, stopping at the table laden with food.

"My brother wished me away," he continued, the memories started to rush back. And then one in particular... he looked up, his eyes snapping wide in panic. "You won't turn me into a goblin, will you?"

"Maybe. Not if I take a liking to you," she said. Her hands hovered over the feast, plucking an assortment of fruits and breads to place on a golden plate. Her eyes swiveled to take the young boy in. "Tell me. Will I take a liking to you?"

"I don't know," Gareth mumbled. "That's up to you really, isn't it?"

The woman laughed. "Very true," she said. "Very true." She finished piling on her food and brought the plate to Gareth. "Here, I suspect you're hungry."

He stared at the golden plate. It certainly _looked_ appetizing. The breads were rich with honey and nuts, and he'd never even seen half of the fruits before. Each was tantalizingly plump with a mouth-watering, ripe sheen.

At the same time, Gareth had heard stories of food like this. Delicious feasts cooked with the sole purpose of luring unfortunate souls into eating them. Food like this tended to be rife with curses, and it being offered by a beautiful person only added to his suspicion.

"Thank you, but I'm not really hungry," Gareth said, hoping to God that his stomach wouldn't growl and betray his true feelings.

"Hmm... suit yourself,” the woman said, biting into an apple. She conjured another cushioned bench from nothing and stretched out on it.

"Why are you eating on these benches?” Gareth asked. “You have a table. Don't you have chairs?"

"Comfort,” she said simply. “And they're not benches, they're klinai."

Gareth didn't say anything to that, merely sat, twiddling his thumbs as he took in the sound of every fresh bite that the Goblin Queen made. A question sprung to mind.

"So... what's your name?" Gareth asked.

"Does a Goblin Queen need a name?" she asked in return, peering at him curiously over the top of her apple.

"Everyone needs a name."

She paused, considering the question as she examined the remainder of the apple. Gareth watched her, trying to ignore the rising nervousness that was coiling around his stomach. At last she tossed her mostly-eaten apple across the room where something dark and furry scuttled out of a corner to snatch it up. Gareth jumped, biting his lip to keep from crying out.

"It's Ariadne," the Goblin Queen said before plucking a grape from her dish and popping it in her mouth. "And you?"

"My- my name's Gareth," the boy said. "And my brother's name is Edric." One eye was still on the corner from where that _thing_ had appeared. Had that been a goblin? Were there more of them lurking where he couldn't see? How many more were there? Were they watching him right now?

"The two of you don't seem like you're from Gaul," Ariadne said, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"No," Gareth said, taking note of the archaic name for the region. "We're from Britain, near the western border of Mercia. It's up north. Our family is on a pilgrimage. Well, my father, brother and I are at least. My mother is managing the castle until we return."

Ariadne twisted her nose. "How... quaint."

She peeled open a long, yellow fruit. Its sweet scent seemed to instantly permeate the room. Once again he was reminded of how hungry he felt. The food that was practically burying the dining table was looking very good indeed, but Gareth kept his mouth pressed shut. After all, magic was at its most dangerous when people were the most desperate. To distract himself from his stomach, he attempted to start up a new conversation topic.

"So where are you from?"

"Excuse me?" Ariadne asked, fruit paused halfway to her mouth as she stared at him.

"Nothing," Gareth said. "Just... I was wondering where you're from."

"This is the labyrinth. I've always been here."

"Oh." Gareth watched as Ariadne resumed eating, apparently self-satisfied with her answer. He was still curious though. "Like I said, I was just wondering. Just if there happened to be somewhere else, you know. If you _hadn't_ always been here."

Ariadne paused again, this time placing her fruit fully down on the plate. Her head was turned in his direction, but it didn't seem like she was looking at him anymore. Gareth glanced behind himself, just to make sure someone hadn't suddenly appeared, but the two were still alone.

"There used to be a place, a far away place," Ariadne said. "For a little while... a lifetime, and yet not long at all. But the labyrinth has always been my home." She smiled sadly for a brief moment, and then her eyes focused on him again. "Why do you ask?"

Gareth shrugged. “I… I thought that since you asked me where _I_ was from, that you're somewhat interested in people being from other places, and then since you're interested in that, perhaps you used to be from somewhere else too... I guess. I don’t suppose that makes any sense.”

Ariadne regarded him with a single raised eyebrow.

"You're observant," she finally said, reaching for her plate of fruit again. "I'll give you that."

The two continued to talk more. Gareth told the Goblin Queen about his proud, strong father and his gentle mother; the small stone castle where he lived that wasn't anything like this; the king that his father served and _his_ castle, an imposing structure that put his home to shame and yet also paled in comparison to this room of pure white. He spoke of family hunting trips and his doubts about becoming a knight when Edric had always been so much stronger, so much braver, and overall just so much better at everything. Ariadne waved that away, taking advantage of his self-doubt to tell him about the labyrinth, the wondrous creatures who dwelt its depths, its various twists and turns and pitfalls that its runners fell through, and the things that they took for granted.

At the end of one particularly gripping anecdote she paused, a slight pout marring her serene face as she looked down and realized that she was out of food.

"Well," she said as she stood up. "It's a good of a place to take a break as any." She gestured for Gareth to stand up as well.

"Oh, I'm still not hungry."

"No, no. I'm not going to force feed you if you don't want to," she said, brushing a thick black curl over one shoulder. "I want to show you something."

Warily, Gareth stood up, watching from a safe distance as she swiftly piled more food onto her dish. When it was full once more, she guided him to a window with one hand pressing on the small of his back. She stepped back as they approached it. Gareth continued forward by himself, leaning over the white stone to fully view the lands beyond.

All around him was magic. A goblin city lay below, its red-tiled houses sheltering an assortment of brown creatures that made their way through cobbled streets and white fountains. In one square, several red furry creatures tossed around their heads beneath a large, bronze statue of a chicken. Beyond the city was a forest, the sculpted trees and hills contributing their own portions to the giant maze. Even more distant lay a series of hedge rows that the queen had mentioned, and then the main white maze past that. The desert surrounding it all was a thin, hazy line on the horizon, barely visible even when he squinted. And as he watched, tried to take in everything at once, he realized the maze was moving. One wall would shift in a new direction and then another. Across the whole labyrinth, they swirled and danced. The walls extended down beneath the visible surface and into the depthless catacombs, the underground lakes, and oubliettes. He closed his eyes and could _feel_ …

A light hand gripped his shoulder and Gareth's eyes snapped open.

"Is anything wrong?" Ariadne asked.

He looked out over the labyrinth. The maze remained just a maze. He thought of his brother, currently out there, running, and of all of the traps and dangers she'd told him about.

"My brother... he'll be okay, won't he?"

As Gareth stared at her, trembling slightly, Ariadne smiled. She ran one hand gently through his hair to sooth him.

"Fear not, young lord. People rarely die in my labyrinth. It's one of my kindnesses... as well as one of my cruelties."

"Cruelties?"

"I force people to live with the decisions that they’ve made," she said simply. "You think highly of your brother. Even after he wished you away to me."

"He's my brother," Gareth said. "I mean, he can be an annoying jerk at times, but so am I. That's just... part of being brothers."

He gazed out the window again, searching at each glimpse of movement. Was Edric out there right now? What if he'd gotten lost? What if he never made it to the center?

"I wish I’d never told him that stupid story,” Gareth muttered.

"Well," Ariadne said, resting her hands on his shoulders to gently turn him back around to face her. "I'm glad at least. Otherwise I would've never gotten the chance to meet you."

"So…” he said, remembering her earlier words, “have you taken a liking to me?"

Ariadne laughed, the sound almost musical. "Why yes," she said as they walked back to the klinai. "I suppose I have."

He thought more about his brother as he sat down, of the earlier days of their pilgrimage when the thrill of adventure had still coursed through the air.

"This has been the first time I've left Britain," Gareth said, stretching out. He was feeling sleepy all of a sudden and fought to contain a yawn. "I remember when we saw the ocean. Edric always tries to act so knowledgeable, like he's seen it all and nothing impresses him anymore.” He snorted. “But even he couldn't hide it then. It was too big and too beautiful and… oh, there was so much blue."

"The sea is a beautiful and powerful thing," Ariadne said softly, reverently. "It gets in your mind, wraps around your heart." Her eyes fluttered shut and for several moments the two simply took in the silence. Then she opened her eyes and stood up. "I should check on your brother. Make sure he's not getting into too much trouble," she said. "Will you be okay by yourself? The food will stay on the table if you change your mind."

"I think I'll be okay."

She smiled, patting him on the head once and then vanished.

Gareth bolted up right, his drowsiness gone.

Had she just disappeared into thin air? She had conjured the other bench out of nothing. What other powers did she posses? A small part of him seemed to scoff at his alarm. Ariadne was a Goblin Queen who ruled over a giant magical labyrinth. What had he expected? When he thought about it, it would've been stranger for her _not_ to have the ability to disappear at will. 

He was still frowning in consternation when he spied another furry creature across the hall, slowly reaching a paw up towards a roll of bread on the table. In its other hand were already several strawberries, an apple, and a chicken wing.

"Hey! What are you doing!"

The creature dropped all the food and tried to scamper away. Gareth wanted to catch it, to ask it things. It was fast though, already halfway across the room. If he tried to chase after it, he’d never be able to catch it.

His only option was to bluff.

"If you don't stop right now, I'll tell the queen that you were stealing from her!” Gareth yelled.

The creature froze. It turned in small jerks as if each movement was a painful, concentrated effort. "Stealing?" it asked in a high voice.

"Yes. 'Stealing.' You know," Gareth said. "Taking something that isn't yours?"

The creature appeared to consider this. It scratched its head in quick furtive movements. Gareth took the time to walk over, cautious in case it bolted after all. From the closer distance, he could tell that it was some sort of middle-aged, whiskery type of terrier dog wearing a grey jacket.

"If the food is on the table," the terrier said. "And one has the ability to take it, then why should he not?"

Gareth sighed. "Because it's wrong."

He answer was met with only silence and a blank stare.

"You know, 'right' and 'wrong'? There are things you should do and things you shouldn't?"

The terrier paused again to scratch its ear. "And who decides these things?"

This time, Gareth had to think.

He considered bringing up the Bible but didn't think it'd help much. If the terrier didn't even know what right and wrong were, in all likelihood it wouldn't know about the book. With his luck, it'd probably start asking about who wrote it and why they got to decide things, and Gareth had never been the greatest theological expert.

"No one really decides them," Gareth eventually said. "But my father has always lived by what's right and wrong, and I've noticed that things are better when you do. Knight's honor."

The terrier perked up at the last couple words. "What is this... 'knight's honor'?"

Gareth started to explain but was cut off by a loud stomach rumble. He looked down; so did the terrier.

"If you are hungry," it said. "Then why not take the food? Is it because of this 'knight's honor'?"

"Oh no,” Gareth said. “The queen said I could have as much as I wanted, but..." Gareth trailed off, thinking of all the potential curses the food could be steeped with. Ariadne had turned out to be rather nice, but that didn't change the fact that she'd technically kidnapped him. Edric wishing him away didn’t count as permission.

"But what?"

Gareth hesitated, not wanting to admit to one of the queen’s subjects that he didn't trust her fully. He doubted the terrier would report back to Ariadne, seeing as how he'd just been trying to steal from her, but it didn't hurt to be safe.

"Are you sure the food won't accidentally turn me into a goblin?" Gareth asked instead. "Not that I'm saying it will turn me on purpose! But more like a side effect. I mean, I can't imagine that humans get to eat it very often, so there could always be some side effects that even she doesn't know about."

The terrier shrugged. "The food is harmless," it said. "Why do you think I'm trying to eat it? Tis safer to risk food off her table than try ones luck with the berries in the forest." It paused to shake its head. "There are some that leave you thinking up is down for days on end, others that create miniature illusions… and those are the safer ones. Outside the magic gets everywhere. Seeps everywhere! Here things are safe. Delicious and safe. However..." it trailed off, sniffing the air. "If it is strange food that worries you, why do you not eat that peach that is in your pocket?"

"Wait, what peach?"

Gareth frowned in confusion as he felt around his clothes. His fingers closed around a small lump towards the bottom of his jacket, and he suddenly remembered picking the fruit off the churchyard's tree early that morning to save as a quick snack later.

He pulled the small peach out and examined it - considering the possibility of sabotage - before deciding that it was probably safe. He bit in and relished its flavor, the warm sticky juice seeping out between his fingers.

"What is your name?" the terrier asked.

"If'z Jareff,” he managed between mouthfuls, too hungry now to fully chew and swallow before speaking.

"Jareth?" the terrier repeated incorrectly. "That's an odd name. Heroic though. Brave! Strong! Fearless! Quick to cut down foes! Swift to victory. Jareth, Jareth yes. It is a marvelous name."

Gareth finally swallowed, wincing slightly as he forced a particularly large chunk of fruit down. "Well," he said. "Actually it's..."

He trailed off as he watched the terrier continue to mutter the name under his breath, a far off sparkle in his eye. If a simple name could strike such a inspiring chord within the creature, it wasn't worth correcting.

"Never mind," he said. "So what's your name?"

The terrier beamed. "My name is Didymus!"

"That's... an interesting name as well."

"You think so? There are many interesting names and creatures in the labyrinth!" Didymus puffed out his chest slightly. "I am one of the first!"

"One of the first? Before Ariadne?" Gareth asked.

Didymus' chest deflated. Gareth almost felt bad for asking. Almost.

"No," he said. "The queen was here before us all. Though some say there _is_ one who was here in the labyrinth before even her."

"Who?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. Rumors _are_ only rumors after all... I am still curious to learn about this 'knight's honor' however."

With a slightly exasperated sigh, Gareth led the terrier back to the cushioned benches. He sat upon his as Didymus clambered on top of the one that Ariadne had left, apparently comfortable with the furniture despite his earlier hesitation at the table. Gareth explained to the terrier what a knight was, what his duties to his king were, how most of his own ancestors had been knights as well, and how he and his brother were both prepared to take up the sword as well. As he talked about the different facets of the royal court, the terrier listened to it all with the most rapt attention.

"And they have to pay proper respect to their king and queen as well as their fellow lords and ladies," Gareth said.

"I see," Didymus said, somewhat sullenly. "I have never been very rich. How much payment is required?"

"Oh, it's not with money!" Gareth said quickly. "Paying respect is all about courtesy and titles, that is, different words we use to refer to one another. Like the queen! A normal noble woman would addressed as 'my lady', but the queen would be known as 'your majesty.'"

"Hmm... Shall we journey forth, your majesty? Shall we journey forth, my lady?" He mulled it over, muttering the two sentences again and again. "I rather prefer the sound of the second."

"Well choose whichever you like, but for proper respect, kings and queens are always majesties."

They continued to talk about other titles and knightly things until Gareth began to yawn again. The excitement that the terrier had provided only lasted for so long. He had no way of telling the time but felt that at least an hour had passed since Ariadne had left and Didymus had appeared.

"If you are tired, my lord, then why not take a nap?"

His lips twitched upwards. Didymus was really taking hold of his newly discover "knight's honor." 

"I suppose..." Gareth said, leaning back on the klinai. The pillows were soft and the room warm. He didn't really want to fall asleep, not by himself like this in a strange magical place, but a short nap was starting to sound very nice. Despite his inclination against it, he shut his eyes, if only for a few seconds.

"Can I take this?"

Gareth blinked opened his eyes to see Didymus holding the peach pit directly in front of him.

"Umm... sure."

"Thank you so much, sir. Good sir!"

Gareth cracked a smile. "Look at you. You're a knight already."

"Oh no," Didymus said, now cradling the peach pit before pocketing it beneath his tiny jacket. "I know now that I have a lot to learn before I am worthy of becoming one of them! Why, first of all-“

As the terrier continued to chat enthusiastically, Gareth slowly nodded, his eyes drifting shut again. He continued to smile as Didymus's chatter accompanied him to sleep.

* * *

When he woke up again, Ariadne had returned. She was standing by the window, her back to him.

As quietly as possible, Gareth pushed himself into a sitting position. It felt like he'd been sleeping for hours. The sun had moved lower the sky; the light that streamed in through the various pillars and windows had a red tinge to it.

"There's one hour left," Ariadne said in a pensive tone, apparently hearing him despite his efforts to remain undetected. She pulled out a small crystal from the short sleeves of her dress and stared into its depths. "Your brother isn't going to make it." Ariadne turned towards him. "I'm going to have to make a choice."

Gareth looked down, curling his fingers into the slightly muddy fabric of his pants. He bit his lip, trying not to cry. "Edric..." he trailed off, not wanting to say the word 'failed'. "You won't turn me into a goblin, will you?" Gareth asked, suddenly desperate, his eyes locking onto hers and refusing to let go.

Ariadne's eyes widened, and then softened. The crystal disappeared from her hand as she glided over to Gareth and sat down next to him. He let out an involuntary sob. One arm wrapped around him, drawing him closer to her as the other began to lazily trail through his hair.

"Ssh," she whispered, continuing to hold him as his tears poured out. "Nothing will happen to you. You have nothing to fear."

"But my brother-"

"Even if your brother doesn’t make it here within the hour, I will not change you into a goblin. I promise."

Gareth blinked. He cautiously brought a hand up and wiped the tears from his face. "Really?"

"Really."

"Does that also mean I'll be able to go back home?"

She remained silent. Uneasiness stirring in his gut again, Gareth tried to get a look at her face, but her arm held him securely in place. He struggled half-heartedly, knowing that it wouldn't be wise to seriously upset her, before giving up and settling back into a relaxed position.

“You don’t want to stay here,” he heard her say. It wasn’t a question. “You want to go back home.”

“I…” Gareth knew it wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, but he couldn’t lie. “It’s just… there are so many people waiting for me,” he said. “My father, my mother… There’s Wilfred. He’s the stable master and _really_ good with horses. Oh, and Hilda! She runs the kitchens!”

Ariadne flinched. Her arm tightened painfully around him and Gareth let out a tiny squeak.

"I don't do any of this because I want to," she whispered.

This time, he was the one who didn’t respond.

They sat there like that in stillness and in silence. He tried to think of other things. Things that weren't his brother, weren't his family, weren't completely dependent on the events of the next hour. What _was_ this place? Would it be his home for the rest of his life?

Knowing that he wouldn't be turned into a goblin had taken away some of his fear, but that didn't change anything else. So he was in a fantastical, magical world. So what? He missed his mother. He missed his father. His missed his home, its corridors, its courtyards. He missed sneaking into the kitchens to grab a late evening snack and getting caught by Hilda who’d give him a sharp rap on the knuckles before lading him up with some more sweets.

He missed his brother.

After awhile, Ariadne stood up, giving him one last pat on the head. As she drew her hand back, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. He trembled, fear spiking through his veins.

"Please don't make me stay here," he said, in an empty high voice. "I don't want to stay here in the labyrinth."

She stared back, not surprised, not sad, not anything. In that moment, her face seemed as rigid as the white stone she stood on.

"I know," she said, coldly. She knelt slightly, placing a soft hand on his shoulder as she lightly kissed his forehead. And then she was gone.

Gareth waited, debating whether or not to stay sitting or start pacing the room. He couldn't stay still, but he felt so sick to his stomach that he couldn't move either. He was about to grip his knees and lower his head to them when he heard the unmistakable voice of his brother.

"Gareth!"

He looked up to see Edric running towards him from across the room, dirt-smudged and tear-stained and looking just as distraught as Gareth had been feeling inside.

"Edric?" Gareth slowly stood up only to get tackled back down as Edric enveloped him in a crushing hug.

"I'm so sorry," his brother said, clutching tighter and tighter until Gareth finally returned the embrace. "I'm sorry I got mad. I'm sorry I wished you away. I'm sorry for all of this!” Edric loosened his hold slightly, turning towards Ariadne who was now casually standing several feet away at the edge of the banquet table. "Please don't turn my brother into a goblin," he choked out between tears. "It's not his fault. Please don’t.”

"Oh, cease your whimpering," she said, strolling over to tower above the two brothers. Ariadne twisted her nose, and then smiled. "You have nothing to worry about that. I've decided to be merciful this time." She sighed. "Both you and your brother are free to go."

Gareth and Edric perked up.

"You mean it?" Gareth asked, recalling her silence when he'd asked about leaving before.

She continued to smile - although something about it didn't seem to reach her eyes - and knelt down to address the boys at their level. "Consider this a life-changing crossroads. Second chances to change your fate are rarer than you can imagine." Her smile faded. "Do not waste it."

"Oh, thank you!" Edric said, clearly relieved by the new turn of events.

Gareth remained silent as she stood back up.

“Take my hands,” she said, holding them out towards the brothers.

Both boys hesitated, glancing at each other, and then slipped their hands within hers. Gareth blinked and they were all standing in the same muddy courtyard he and Edric had been playing in that morning. Edric let out a cry of joy and began running around, kicking mud as he went.

"Come on, Gareth," Edric said, coming back to tug on his younger brother's arm. "You heard the queen. We've got our whole lives ahead of us. Father's been probably beating himself up with worry."

Gareth let himself be pulled one step forward before halting. He was still holding Ariadne’s hand. He looked back; her expression was unreadable.

"Will... will we ever see each other again?" he asked.

The Goblin Queen’s eyes widened, her carefully crafted mask of indifference shattering into one of surprise. She blinked.

"If that is what you wish."

Gareth continued to stare at her, even as Edric resumed tugging on his sleeve, caused him to let go of her hand. The last thing he remembered - before he briefly looked away and she’d vanished - were her brown eyes, round and sadder than they had any logical reason to be.

* * *

"Mother, your eye."

Gareth reached out a hand, but his mother turned away, shielding her face. He had seen it though, its surrounding skin a nasty shade of purple.

"It's nothing," she said, her breath coming out in small puffs. "Your father just had a bad dream." She took a step back as a servant passed them in the corridor. The winter sun shone in bleakly through a small window slit in the wall.

Gareth frowned. "He's been having a lot of those lately."

"Really, Gareth. It's nothing." She hurried away before he had the courage to press further.

At lunch, he sat against a wall eating strips of dried apple as he waited for his brother to finish his lessons. Edric emerged soon enough, and two brothers made their way across the castle's courtyard towards the hall.

"I'm worried about Mother," Gareth said at last.

His brother raised an eyebrow. "What about?"

"She had a black eye when I saw her this morning. Again."

"What did _she_ say about it?"

Gareth sighed, knowing where this conversation was headed. "She told me it was nothing."

"Then I'm sure it's just some-"

"No! It's not. I think Father..." Gareth trailed off as he realized that they were still in the courtyard. He'd been raising his voice again with servants all around to hear every word. He fell silent.

Edric frowned, then awkwardly clasped his younger brother around the shoulders. "He's our father," he said. "We've known him all our lives. If it’s really just some bad dreams, I’m sure it'll be nothing to worry about in the end." The last part came out hesitantly, as if he was trying to reassure himself more than his younger brother.

"But…”

Gareth turned his head upwards, gazing at the castle's ancient stone. It reflected the light off the ground’s blanket of snow, rendering the walls brighter than they normally were. A memory of white stone flickered through his head. As time passed, the memory seemed only more and more a dream itself. "Edric? Do you ever remember that day when-"

However he was interrupted as his brother's grip tightened and he was dragged off once more.

* * *

It should've been raining. It should've been dark, the clouds casting deep shadows over the land even at midday. The moon should've danced across the sky, blocking the sun from reaching the ground forever.

But it wasn't.

Birds fluttered through the sky, chirping blissfully naive songs, and the summer sun beat down, baking the earth. Its rays rendered every visible detail painfully clear as his mother's coffin was slowly lowered into the earth.

His father stood across on the other side of her grave, his eyes avoiding those of his son.

Gareth closed his eyes, willed himself to breathe. Ever since her death, the weeks leading up to her death, all he'd heard were whispers. Other nobles, servants, it didn't matter. They were all the same.

His mother hadn't been faithful. He wasn't his father's son. Questions about who the mysterious man been. Remarks about how odd it was that Gareth looked so much like the lord, when he wasn't his true father. Gossip about whether or not it was a relative. Doubts about whether there'd been a scandal at all and if, perhaps, it was all in his father's head. But then why the dreams? Everyone in the castle knew about the dreams now, about the shouts at night. God sent. Devil sent. Were they there to warn or to create chaos?

All they had done was whisper, whisper, whisper and point and watch as his mother had slowly wasted away. A servant had been the one to eventually find her body, neck broken as she'd laid crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. An unfortunate accident, they'd all called it.

And Gareth hadn’t done anything either. Merely sat in increasing silence as his mother continued to force a smile underneath every fresh bruise.

Pathetic.

He clenched his hands, only dimly aware of his nails breaking through skin and drawing blood.

Edric would've known what to say, what to do. But Edric was a squire now, had been one since the spring. He'd been apprenticed to a traveling knight and was now journeying somewhere, could've been anywhere, far away from here. They'd sent out a letter informing him of his mother's death, but it could take weeks to reach him and weeks for him to return home.

Until then, Gareth remained trapped beneath the whispers.

* * *

Several months passed before Edric finally returned home. Their father prepared a hearty welcome dinner for him, and as they ate he continued to prod his older brother with questions about his training, where he'd been, if his knight sponsor had been treating him well. Edric answered them boisterously for the most part, obviously eager to share his new experiences with his remaining family. However, whenever Edric took the opportunity of a lull in the conversation to ask about their mother or her funeral, their father would deflect.

Gareth spent the whole dinner in silence, barely looking up from his plate as he ate, letting their words wash blankly over him. When his father told Gareth to go to bed, he sullenly obeyed.

He made it to his room, crawled beneath the covers, faking sleep, and waited the usual half hour until one of the servants came to check on him. Once he heard his door swish shut, he cracked open an eye, gingerly testing to see if it was safe to get up again. After he was confident that the servant had moved on to the rest of his nightly tasks, Gareth silently crept out into the hallway and made his way down the dark corridor. His father often retired to his study whenever he had company. With any luck tonight would be no different.

As he approached, voices echoed out from the room. Gareth sidled the rest of the way to the study door with his back pressed against the wall, continuously glancing left and right to make sure no servants snuck by.

"He should really begin his training as a page," he heard Edric say. "He's getting old enough now, and I think it'd be a good distraction from everything that's been happening."

"You think I should spend my money on _him_?" his father snarled, the crackle of flames from the study's fireplace helping to punctuate each word. "On that spawn of a harlot? He isn't even my son!"

"Of course he's your son!" Edric yelled. "Why would he be anything else! What's happened to you?" There was a pause. Gareth leaned closer to the closed door, careful not press up against it, not wanting to even think about what would happen if it accidentally creaked. "Gareth was right," Edric continued. "I should've-"

There was a smack, the sound of flesh striking flesh, and then a thud followed by several clatters.

"One more word," their father said. "One more word and you will no longer be welcome in this house!"

There was a pause of silence and then the sound of footsteps, footsteps making their way towards the door. Gareth's mind fumbled, feet taking over automatically as he tried to scramble away, but Edric stepped out before he’d made it halfway down the corridor.

Gareth watched as his brother wiped a trickle of blood off the corner of his mouth and then, as if sensing another physical presence, turned his head directly towards his younger brother.

“Ed-Edric..."

But his older brother merely rubbed the back of his now bloodied hand on the bottom of his tunic and walked away in the opposite direction.

He never returned home.

* * *

It started small. The first person to fall sick had been an old farmer who'd lived over a mile way. Then one of the villagers had caught the same sickness, and then another. The plague spread rapidly through the town outside their castle, killing indiscriminately. The young, the old, the weak, the strong…

His father had tried to quarantined the castle, but the sickness worked its way in despite the stone walls. It struck the cooks, the stablehands, the steward...

Growing up, he’d often wondered if he'd end up crying when his father eventually died. The man had taken so much from him, had kept him practically locked up, an eyesore to the world… but deep down there was still a part of him that remembered the father he'd once been. It remembered the smiling father, the laughing father, the one who used to take his two sons - because back then there had always been two - on hunting trips that could last for days, returning only when they’d managed both a full catch and full hearts.

When his father actually died, succumbing after only a few days, Gareth found his answer. He watched in silence as two servants covered his father's corpse with a white sheet, the cloying scent of flowers itching at his nose. There were no tears, no stirrings of anger, no flash of triump.

He didn't feel anything about anything at all.

His father was gone… His mother was gone… His brother was gone…

Gareth remained in his room after the funeral, not eating, barely drinking. Sometimes he'd blink and the morning sun would turn to dusk. He was dimly aware of his parched throat and a hunger-constricted stomach, but he pushed those away to the side. Occasionally he had visions of a woman with dark black curls smoothing the hair from his face. His eyes would flutter close, his head leaning back until it hit the wall of his bedroom, and he'd jolt forward into the land of the living again.

The land of the dying.

One day his door was kicked open, and he was roughly picked up by a pair of strange guards. They hauled him through the dark corridors of the now mostly empty castle, the stench of the sick and dying present as it always was these days. The smell bypassed his stomach and wrapped straight around his head, making him dizzy.

The guards deposited him on the ground behind the kitchen doors, and he crumpled into a heap. Above him loomed a finely-dressed man on horseback. There was no one else around. Gareth weakly looked up at the man. He vaguely recognized face; it was Lord Baldric from the neighboring fiefdom.

The large man dismounted, pulling out his sword in one fluid movement. Gareth's gaze fell to the ground as Lord Baldric stood over him. He felt the sharp, cold blade come to rest at the back of his neck.

"Everything I have learned," Lord Baldric said. "Everything experience in my life thus far tells me to slay you right here. I could blame your death on the plague and no one would be the wiser.”

Gareth glanced up. The older lord stared back, his face alight with passion. Gareth dropped his head again, tired. Unfeeling. He had nothing in his life, nothing to lose. At least his death would be swift.

But then Lord Baldric turned away.

"When this plague began," the lord said. "When this divine punishment struck both our lands I received a vision, a promise of future prosperity." He turned back to Gareth. "Months ago I saw myself sparing your life, a dream that I thought nothing more of at the time. But now we are here: I, the conquerer, and you, the conquered. How easy it’d be to take your life and claim your lands as my own without threat of future retribution."

Gareth felt the sword raise; he winced in anticipation despite himself. The sound of metal sliding across metal echoed through the air. Gareth looked up to see Lord Baldric sheathing his sword.

"May this be a fortuitous crossroad in our destinies," Lord Baldric said. "I shall heed the greater powers. Go. I give you your life. It is yours to do with as you wish."

Gareth stared at the larger man, not entirely understanding what had just happened. Lord Baldric frowned, clearly impatient.

"I said, go!" he bellowed.

His anger caused his horse to stamp its feet in alarm. The movement startled Gareth whose legs finally took over, and he fled. He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead and never looked back.

Gareth continued running even after he'd reached the relative safety of the forest, and it was only after he'd tripped on a sprawling tree root that he finally slowed to walk. Even so Gareth continued to trudge on for hours, letting his mind disengage as his lower half kept putting one foot in front of the other, until his entire body gave out and he collapsed, unconscious, in the middle of the forest road.

* * *

Gareth awoke slowly, a cool cloth continuously pressing against his forehead. He mumbled weakly, trying to swat it away.

"Who's Ariadne?" a light, female voice asked.

His eyes shot open, the name and memory striking him to the core. Gareth tried to sit up, but was once again too weak. He settled with blearily staring up as a young, brown-haired woman in a thread-bare dress stared down. She was seated on the bed next to him, clearly at ease despite her slightly confused pout.

"Who are you?" Gareth managed. Peering around the cramped, earthy room, he added, "Where am I?

The woman's pout faded as she sighed. "That's not what I asked, but I suppose I should be kind to the ill. You're in my father’s house," she said. "In the village of Stafford. And my name is Moira."

 


	3. The Tale of Jareth: Part Two

Gareth must've fallen asleep again because the next time he came to, the young woman was gone.

He groaned, feebly lifting his weak arm to clutch at his pounding forehead. The world swam, and he almost collapsed again in a wave of dizziness. He blinked, clearing his vision, and glimpsed a mass of brown curls before it ducked beneath the bed.

"Ethel? What is it?" came a voice from outside the room. The young woman walked in. Moira, she had called herself. "Oh!"

Her eyes were locked directly on him. She paused, blushing slightly. "I see you're awake," she said, softly.

Gareth didn't answer, too busy taking in the rest of his surroundings, recollecting certain memories and blocking others.

The feel of the damp ground as he knelt before Lord Brian, the sound of metal sliding against its scabbard, slipped through his defenses. His hands unconsciously tightened around the thin blanket that’d been draped over him. He quickly shoved that memory away with the rest.

"Mary, was it?" he asked, glancing over.

Her lips twisted. "It's Moira. And this," she said as she extracted a small creature from under the bed, “is my younger sister, Ethelwynn. You can just call her Ethel though."

"Hmm..."

He turned his attention away from the two sisters to survey his current quarters. The room was cramped and dingy, with barely any furniture, save one small battered table and the bed he was currently laying on. From somewhere outside, the stench of manure wafted in; he wrinkled his nose in displeasure.

"You're not very grateful, are you?"

"Sorry," he said, quickly turning back to the woman. "Were you saying something?"

"I mean, not that I expected anything really," she said, pausing slightly as Gareth turned away again, this time to peer at a large cobweb near the ceiling. "We do what we can because we should, not for any kind of reward… but that doesn't mean… That is, getting rescued like you did, a thank you at _least_ is what most men- I mean... You shouldn't take that sort of help for granted."

She frowned when he didn't respond.

"You do know that if I hadn't found you, you might've _died_ in that forest."

His head snapped towards her, eyes flashing. "Then perhaps you should've let me!"

Moira took in a sharp breath and then let it all out in one indignant huff. "Ugh! How can you be so... so... selfish!?”

Gareth flinched slightly, expecting Moira to slap him, but she merely stormed out of the room, not even bothering to slam the door behind. Seconds passed, then minutes, and slowly the sea of brown curls named Ethel came back into view.

"Here to lecture me with some sappy tale about the joys of life and innocence of youth?" he asked with a twisted smile.

Ethel fidgeted with the bottom of her small dress, wringing it between her hands. "Did someone die?" she finally whispered.

"What?"

"Everyone got really sick awhile ago,” the small girl said. “A lot of people died. Wulfric from down the road, Gwen, Thurston, Edith… and Mummy. Did someone around you die too?"

"That's-" As he reached out a hand to brush through his hair, Ethel suddenly squeaked and ran out of the room as well. He sighed, falling back against the lumpy, dank bed.

* * *

He was sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking a vast valley. A chill made its way down the back of his spine and he turned.

The woman was standing a short distance behind him, the one with the white dress and black curls…

“Ariadne,” he said.

She smiled at him. “So you remember me,” she said. “How wonderful. I just knew-”

“What are you doing here?”

Her smiled faded.

“Can’t I check up on an old friend?” she asked. “Especially after he’s been through such _trying_ times…”

The Goblin Queen waltzed over to sit next to him. Gareth didn’t quite want her to, but he didn’t want to offend her either so he remained silent.

“Mortal lives are so fragile,” she said. “I could help you, you know.”

Gareth stared at her.

“What?” he said.

Ariadne fiddled with the pendant at her neck as she gazed out over the valley. “I could help you,” she repeated. “I could give you power… if you wished for it.”

“And why would I do that?”

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Don’t you seek revenge?” she asked.

“Revenge? On who?”

“Lord Baldric to start with,” Ariadne said smoothly. “After all he’s taken your family’s castle.”

“I hate that castle,” Gareth muttered. “He’s more than welcome to it.”

Ariadne frowned.

“Your brother then,” she said. “He abandoned you, traipsing off into the world without a care, while you suffered back home. With my power you could find him. Question him. Make him pay for all of his inaction over the past couple years.”

Gareth’s heart clenched. He hadn’t thought about his brother in awhile. He tried not to. There had to be a logical reason, just _had_ to, why he’d left and never came back.

Whatever reason that was though, he could never think of it.

“I care about him anymore,” he found himself saying.

“Riches then,” Ariadne said. “Fame. Immortality. You have nothing now. Surely you must-”

“No.”

Gareth wasn’t bothering to stay polite anymore. It wasn’t as though he was trying to antagonize her on purpose. He simply didn’t care anymore, and she was being annoying. Besides, what could she really do to him? Turn him into a goblin?

He didn’t care about that anymore.

“What _do_ you wish for then?”

Gareth turned slowly to face the queen, soaking in the way she seemed to be hanging on his every word.

“From you?” he asked casually.

Ariadne smiled at him and then nodded.

“Nothing.”

Her face blanched. The Goblin Queen stared at him, muscles around the corner of her mouth twitching, and then she stood.

“Fine!” she snapped. “But remember this! One day you'll be crawling back to me, _desperate_ for my help! Mark my words!”

Gareth lifted an eyebrow at her as if to say ‘that’s nice,’ and privately smirked at her resulting screech. He waited for her to disappear and then went back to gazing out over the valley.

* * *

Gareth blinked.

He was lying in the same tiny bed in the same tiny house. From the other room, he could hear Moira and Ethel’s muffled voices drifting through the thin walls.

It’d just been a dream.

* * *

Over the next several days, Gareth learned that Moira and Ethel were the only children of an elderly man who lived on a small farm at the edge of their village. With just the three of them, the small family barely produced enough to survive. Meals were usually a small cut of rye bread left by Gareth’s bedside before he woke and a rather bland, vegetable-heavy stew that the family shared with him in the evenings.

All three were always out from sunrise to sunset. Moira attempted to share dinner with him the first couple nights. Her cheerfulness annoyed him, and through spiteful after spiteful remark, Gareth made it clear that he did not care for her presence.

However, despite his continuous cold and grating demeanor, he wasn’t kicked out. He was starting to think that there was nothing he could do short of murder that would get her bleeding, saintly heart to truly give up on him.

Gareth almost contemplated apologizing from time to time - after all, the family was feeding and taking care of him - but then she’d go do something so repulsively sweet he didn't know how. Perhaps she felt bad after her mother’s death and was taking care of him as a way to feel better about herself.

After all, no one was that genuinely kind.

No one.

As time passed, he noticed that Moira didn't really talk that much to him. Oh, she talked plenty _at_ him, but he never offered a contributing word to actually turn the talks into a conversation. Sometimes, he watched her from his room’s window as she worked the field. The woman would stop and chat with practically anyone who walked by, her beaming smile and tinkling laughter making a place deep inside his chest ache.

It'd been a long time since he'd felt anything but numbness. He simultaneously cherished and detested the pain.

The girls' father wasn't very talkative. Their eyes would connect sometimes, and the older man would silently stare at him before looking away. Even if Moira had taken it upon herself to fashion Gareth into her personal redemption pet, he wasn't sure why the father was agreeing to go along with it.

His new situation was utterly baffling.

The only one who really spent any true time in his company was Ethel. The girl would stroll up to his bedside between chores and demand him to tell her all the stories he knew. He indulged her just to keep her from whining.

He quickly ran out of fairy tales though. When he’d been younger, he’d known them all… but after a time he’d lost patience with them. Soon enough he had to start making up stories of his own, taking the few pleasant, adventurous things he remembered as a child and embellishing them as best he could.

One day, he had to resort to telling her about the goblins and their queen of the labyrinth. Moira walked in during that one, rolling her eyes as Ethel gasped over and over again at every other sentence.

"Ethel,” Moira said. “What did I tell you about believing everything you hear? It’s just a story. Goblins aren’t real.”

Ethel pouted. "Just because we haven't seen them, doesn’t mean it they can’t exist,” she said.

Moira sighed.

“Whatever makes you happy, I suppose. Father’s looking for you by the way.”

“Oh, okay,” Ethel said. She smiled at Gareth. “Tell me the rest of the story when I get back.” She swung her feet a little and then jumped off the bed.

Both Moira and Gareth watched her scurry out of the room.

“A queen at the center of the labyrinth?” Moira suddenly asked. “Shouldn’t it be a minotaur?”

“A what?”

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just another story. My mother was quite fond of them. She’d collect as many as possible whenever the caravans came through town.”

Gareth glanced down at his hands. He’d been debating telling her for over a week now… he might as well get it over with…

“‘I’m sorry,” he said.

“Really?” Moira said. “What for?"

He gave her a sullen glance “You know exactly what for.” Gareth was able to sit up and walk around a little by now. He shakily pushed himself out of the bed and took some steps towards Moira. “I’m sorry for making fun of your… um, house. And for saying things about how you talk so much.”

It wasn’t a very good apology in the slightest, but Moira smiled all the same.

“What’s done is done,” she said. “It doesn’t change the past. You just have to keep moving forward.”

Gareth considered that. His eyes swept the floor as he struggled for his next words.

“Well,” he said. “I don’t have any money… and I don’t have many skills, but if there’s anything I can do to repay you…”

Moira was silent. Gareth didn’t dare to shift his attention off the floor.

And then he heard her say, “Have you ever worked a plough?”

* * *

He decided to stay and help out on their farm. Only for a short while, until the three of them were able to get back on their feet.

He wasn’t very much help at first. He’d already been scrawny, even before the plague, and his subsequent near-starvation and bedrest hadn’t helped. He could only push the family’s plough for a number of minutes before needing to take a break.

Moira continued to be as irritating as ever. Once, while he was savagely attacking the ground, she actually laughed.

“What are you doing?” she called out from halfway across the field.

“Working,” he yelled. “Obviously.”

“You’re going to waste all your energy if you keep doing it that way!”

He gritted his teeth, starring at the metal instrument. “I can do it whatever way I want!”

“Alright! If you’re sure!”

He looked up when she didn’t respond further. She’d gone back to work on her portion. He continued on for what seemed like forever, and then stopped when Moira came up to him again.

“What,” he muttered.

“I’m done.”

Incredulous, Gareth looked around. She was right. Her side of the field was completely tilled. He hadn’t even finished half. More over, she appeared to still be brimming with energy while he was completely exhausted.

“Haven't you learned that you can't always attack things head on?” she asked.

Gareth closed his eyes. Her words reminded him of his younger days with Edric. They stung.

“I used to,” he finally said. “It’s been a long time.”

“Well,” she said. “It’s about time that you remembered. Here, take this hoe.”

Gareth resisted for a second, then released his grip on the ineffective plough and took the offered tool. His eyes widened slightly as Moira’s hands came to rest on top of them. She guided his arms with fluid movements.

“See,” she said. “You work with the earth. Not against it. Now you try.”

As soon as her hands left his, his movements became clunky. Pained. He remembered the way he used to be able to move. He’d made fighting look like a dance… and now he couldn’t even handle a simple farming tool. He gritted his teeth, muttering curses under his breath.

He hit a rock in his anger and flinched as the reverberations travelled up the shaft, numbing his hands. He cursed fully then and threw the hoe to the ground.

Moira actually frowned for once at that. “Getting mad isn’t going to solve anything,” she said.

“I give up!” he snapped. “This is stupid! This whole farm…” He fought to control his breathing. “No wonder you don’t have any money!”

Moira remained silent as he stormed off in the direction of the house.

* * *

Weeks became months.

All of his interactions with Moira followed mostly the same pattern. He’d manage to take one step forward before managing to put both feet in his mouth.

He considered leaving the small farm multiple times… but where would he go? Besides, Moira’s family still needed the extra hand. As he built his strength up, he was able to accomplish more and more. Slowly they were able to put more food on the table. Some days he’d catch Moira’s father nod at him in appreciation.

And so he stayed.

The months became years.

* * *

Gareth was in the village square helping to barter some of their recent produce for various necessities when he heard the sound of echoing hoofbeats. The village people cleared out of the way as four brutish men on horseback rode up into the center of the square.

He felt a frisson of fear for Moira. She’d come here with him but had wandered off. He searched the crowd…

As if sensing his concern, he felt a tap on his arm and whirled around to see Moira standing right next to him. He almost smiled, but quickly froze. Her face was white and pinched. She was staring at the riders.

He watched as the largest one addressed the crowd.

“Greetings,” he called out in a gruff voice. “I know it has been several years, and I know how much you must have missed us. But be joyous for Thored the Great has returned! You will have his protection again in exchange for a modest tribute. Brismar and Strong Griff here will be collecting. Anyone who refuses… well. I’m sure you all have decent memories.”

As he spoke, two of the riders dismounted and began making their way through the crowd. There were a couple of hesitant, worn-out looks from the villagers and then small sacks of copper began exchanging hands.

“What’s going on,” Gareth whispered.

“Thored’s men,” Moira whispered back. “They’re outlaws. Left several years ago. We thought we’d seen the last of them.” She pursed her lips. “Apparently not.”

“What? Why don’t you tell your lord? Have him send some knights?”

“We did in the past. They’d fight them off for awhile, but Thored’s men were always too quick. They’d move onto another village and come back once all the lord’s men had left. Then they’d demand _twice_ as much.”

“You can’t just do nothing though!” he snapped.

Moira quickly shushed him.

“What would you have us do?” she hissed. “Fight? They’d kill us all.”

They paused as one of the outlaws came up to them. He leered at Moira and then held out a hand to accept the ‘tribute.’ As Moira started to pull out her purse, Gareth’s hackles rose. Moira stomped on his foot, momentarily dazing him, and completed the transaction. The outlaw stared at the copper a second, as if debating whether or not to demand more and then moved on.

“If you give into them, it won’t change anything,” Gareth muttered. “They’ll just keep asking for more.”

“Oh?” she said. “I wasn’t aware that you were an expert on outlaws now. Go. Challenge him if you want. I won’t be the one to bury you.”

Gareth inhaled deeply. He watched, helpless, as the outlaws collected the rest of the villager’s money. When it was done, the large one thanked them all again and rode off.

The easy mood from before had been broken. Bartering was done for the day. Everyone shuffled back to their respective homes. Gareth felt Moira take his arm and do the same.

It wasn’t a long walk back to her family’s farm, but they still found the sun beginning to set before they arrived.

“It’s really not a big deal,” he heard Moira say. “We’ll manage. We always do.”

He turned to say something in response, to argue as he always did, and found his breath caught in his throat.

The dying sun cast golden shadows over the landscape. Several had fallen onto Moira’s hair, making it glisten as it fell about her freckled skin.

When she smiled at him next, Gareth realized that - somewhere along the way - he must have fallen in love with her.

* * *

Someone shook him awake. He groaned, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes. Moira was standing over the small cot that’d become his bed in the intervening years.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Moira simply placed her finger over her lips. In the background of the main room he could see their father bundling up Ethel in her thickest coat.

“What’s going on,” he whispered.

“The outlaws are raiding the village. They’ve already set several buildings on fire. We’re escaping to the woods. Get dressed. Hurry.”

Gareth almost questioned whether or not the forest would be the safest place, but decided not to argue. Moira was right. Her family had dealt with the outlaws before; he hadn’t. Gareth was still struggling with his boots when he was yanked out the door.

In the open night, he could smell the smoke and see a cherry-red glow in the direction of the main village. He lingered on the road, staring, but Moira quickly pushed him on.

No sooner than they’d reached the edge of the trees, Gareth could hear rapid hoofbeats approaching. They continued running through forest until Moira’s father declared they’d reached a safe spot.

“How long do we stay here?” he asked, his breath coming out in short huffs.

“Until morning at least,” Moira said.

“Morning!” he said. “But that’s hours and hours away!”

“We’ll stick together,” Moira’s father said. “We’ll see it through.”

The older man took the first watch of the night. Not long after Moira began to huddle next to Gareth for warmth. He tried not to think about the way her shoulder pressed against his or how her soft hair gently tickled his nose.

After an hour or so, Gareth took his turn as watchman. After that, Moira insisted he take a break and took up the post. After Moira, her father began the cycle again.

Gareth was half-asleep when he heard Moira whisper, “Ethel?”

A pause.

“Ethel?!”

“What is it?” her father asked, taking his attention off the surrounding forest.

“Ethel!” Moira cried. “She was just here a second ago!”

Gareth glanced around. The youngest member of their family had disappeared. Moira was quickly growing hysterical.

“It’s okay, Moira,” her father said. “Stay here. I’ll search for her. She’s probably not far. Gareth, protect her.”

Moira burst into tears.

Gareth swallowed nervously but nodded at the older man. He left, quickly disappearing into the shadows of the dark trees.

* * *

Neither Moira’s father or Ethel reappeared for the rest of the night. Moira attempted to leave several times to search for them. They were half-hearted attempts though, and she gave up whenever Gareth tugged back on her arm. Her father had told both of them to stay there, he reminded her.

As soon as dawn broke she bolted, tearing through the trees despite Gareth’s insistence to stay cautious. She was faster than he was and quickly began to out pace him. He lost sight of her near the edge of the woods…

And then heard her scream.

His stomach dropped and he hurried the last bit of distance between them.

He found her kneeling in the middle of the road over the body of her slain father. Her hands covered her mouth as she shook her head in horror.

Gareth found himself with a twinge of sadness as well… Despite having known Moira’s father for years now, a part of him was still numb to death. He put a hand on Moira’s shoulder.

“We need to find Ethel,” he said.

Moira blinked and then nodded slowly, still in shock. She let him lead her limply away.

Their house was mercifully still standing, although their small shed had been burnt down. Inside, the place had been ransacked. Everything of value was gone and everything that wasn’t had been broken or tossed about. Moira dropped to the floor, exhausted. Gareth proceeded to search the two rooms. He found Ethel hiding under the wreckage of the main bed.

The normal bubbly girl was mute, her face tear-streaked. He pulled her out, hoisted her until her arms wrapped around his neck, and carried her back into the main room.

Moira looked up as they entered. As she noticed Ethel, she snapped.

“Why the bloody hell did you leave us?!” Moira shrieked.

“I… I got scared.”

“So you came here? Where it was even more dangerous?!”

“I was under the bed…”

“Father went looking for you! He’s dead because of you!”

Ethel started squirming in Gareth’s arms and he nearly dropped her. “No!” the girl yelled, shaking her head.

“It’s all your fault, Ethel! Why can’t you ever listen for once!?”

“No!” Ethel yelled again, this time bursting into tears. She squirmed to the point where Gareth had to drop her.

Gareth was at a loss for words as the two sisters continued to confront each other. He had no idea if the outlaws were still around… and their father was still lying dead in the street…

He left, unnoticed in the sister’s screams.

With nowhere else to go, he walked to the village square. Most of it had been burnt down. Several bodies were being carted away as he approached. The villagers were claiming their dead.

The immediate carnage was over for now.

Some greeted him with a dead-eyed kind of relief. He asked for their help with Moira and Ethel’s father. They made the sign of the cross and followed.

The older man would be buried with the other dead at sundown. Gareth returned to the house to inform Moira, but when he entered, she was the only one there. The older sister sat slumped against a wall, her face stiff and eyes unblinking.

“Where did Ethel go?” Gareth asked.

Moira didn’t respond.

“Moira,” he repeated. “Where is-”

“I… I lost her,” she said blankly. “I lost…”

Gareth bit back a sigh. “Did she run off again?” he asked. “You know it’s not safe right now.”

“I… I didn’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t… Oh God!”

Moira broke down into sobs. Gareth tried to question her, but she couldn’t answer, merely shaking her head as she hiccuped between her tears.

Gareth frowned. Ethel was still just a child. Even though the outlaws seemed to have retreated for now, who knew what kind of dangers she could get herself into.

“Stay here,” he whispered. “I’ll look for her.”

Moira shook her head again as he left. Gareth began by searching the nearby road. He combed the edges of the forest. He returned to the village again and asked the other villagers if they’d seen her, but Ethel was nowhere to be found.

Gareth returned to the farm house when the sun began to set. Moira hadn’t moved from her position at the wall.

He reached out to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. Moira didn’t react. He didn’t know how to comfort a person. It’d been far too long since he’d last had to.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, sitting down next to her. He put his arm around her. She let him. “We’ll find her. We’ll manage to get through this. You and me together.”

Moira simply cried.

* * *

Gareth had to feed Moira all her meals over the next week. She wouldn’t eat on her own.

Ethel was still missing. Most of the other villagers had given her up dead. Gareth knew that they were probably right, but he refused to believe it. For Moira’s sake if nothing else. Besides, no one had found her body yet.

She could still be out there.

Gareth returned from the village one afternoon, as always, to silence. Gareth wasn’t too concerned about that. He’d been there too. Moira simply needed time. She’d find the strength to smile again.

He opened the door to the bedroom and froze.

Moira was lying on the bed, her eyes open and unseeing. Her wrists were red. They stained the sheets below them. A knife lay on the table next to her.

“No!”

Gareth didn’t know who he yelling at. There was no one to hear. He rushed to her side. Perhaps there was still time… she could be bandaged…

But her skin was cold. Her lips were already tinged blue. She wasn’t breathing.

Moira was dead.

He couldn’t think anymore. He couldn’t… anything.

Gareth sunk to the floor.

This was all his fault. If he’d stayed with Moira… hadn’t just assumed that she’d recover on her own… If he’d paid more attention to Ethel while they were all in the forest… If he’d been the one to go back and search for her instead of their father… Their entire family was dead, and it was all his fault.

 _His_ entire family was dead.

And it was all his fault.

He wished he could go back in time and prevent all this… he would leave the moment he first woke up in this house. No, he’d go back even further, to before the plague… even past that to before his mother had died…

On that pilgrimage…

Perhaps it would’ve have been better if he’d turned into goblin after all. Everything he touched, everything he cared about, died.

He wished that Edric had left him in the labyrinth.

He wished he’d never been born.

“Oh, those are fine wishes to be sure,” a familiar voice said behind him. “But I’ll admit that the past is just _slightly_ out of my ability to change.”

Gareth whipped around to see a plainly dressed woman with short black curls. Her face was ominously familiar…

“Ariadne?” he asked. He shook his head. “No. I’m dreaming.”

“Perhaps you are. Perhaps I’m a simple manifestation of your grief-stricken mind.”

“You… you once told me that you could give me power,” he said, ignoring her half-riddles. “Or at least I think you did… in a dream.”

“That I did.”

“Then save her,” he said.

Ariadne blinked at him.

“Excuse me?”

“I want you to save her,” Gareth said. His gaze drifted to her corpse… He pressed his eyes shut and shuddered, taking a deep breath in and then out. This was only temporary. It would only be temporary.

“She’s already dead,” Ariadne said with a slight scoff. “What do you expect me to do?”

Gareth glared at her.

“Restore her life,” he said pointedly. “Take it from me if you must.”

Ariadne frowned.

“My powers don’t work like that,” she said.

“Then what good are they?” he hissed in clipped tones.

He let out a groan of frustration. He was numb. He was blank. He was not about to start feeling things again, not when all they did was uselessly get in his way. Moira was…

“Go away,” he finally muttered. “Unless you can actually help me, go away.”

“But I’ve always been able to help you,” Ariadne said. “You’ve just never taken it.”

“Revenge is not help!” Gareth snapped. “You’ve just always wanted to use me for… something!”

“ _Use_ you?! Why, I never-”

“Why else would you be interested in me?!”

“Hmm…” Ariadne said. “Perhaps you have a point.” She began to flit around him and his head started to spin. The scent of blood slowly clogged his nostrils like it had so many years ago. “Although, I wonder… if you _had_ accepted my help all those years ago, would she still be alive today? Maybe. Maybe not. I guess we’ll never know.”

“Get. Out.”

“Just like that?” she said. “I am a queen, you know. I really ought to be treated with more respect.”

At Gareth silent glare, she shrugged.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll do as you command. But when those outlaws come back to slaughter the rest of the village, know that their blood will be on your hands.”

“Wait… what?”

“The outlaws,” Ariadne said simply. “You know, the one’s that killed this…” - she wrinkled her nose as she waved at Moira’s corpse - “girl’s father. They’re still out there, and they will come again.”

“Then stop them,” Gareth said.

“Oh, no. I can’t do that,” she said. “I can’t actually _do_ anything in this world. Limitations and rules between the worlds and all…”The Goblin Queen examined her fingers briefly before glancing up at the ceiling. “ _You_ on the other hand…”

Gareth pressed his lips together. She was playing him straight into her hands. He knew that. But at the same time, he could hardly let her leave and just wait for the outlaws to attack the village.

Besides. It wasn’t as though he had anything else to live for now.

“What do I have to do?” he asked.

* * *

Thored’s men laughed around their campfire. All around them lay the spoils of Stafford.

A twig snapped in the darkness beyond the camp. The men tensed at the sound. They drew their swords, their eyes darting around the clearing.

Gareth struck. He dodged their attacks, swiftly cutting down any man who stood in his path. The ghost of Ariadne moved with him, guiding his sword to its mortal strikes.

Half the camp was slaughtered. The other half scattered into the night wind.

Thored himself came out of his tent. He drew his sword and fought for several minutes before Gareth disarmed him.

He lay there in the cold, winter dirt. Gareth’s sword hovered at his throat.

“Please,” the outlaw said. “Have mercy. I’ll give you anything you want! Anything!”

Gareth hesitated.

And then Ariadne’s voice whispered into his ear.

“I’m sure that girl’s father had similar last words…”

Gareth scowled.

His sword thrust down.

* * *

After disposing of Thored’s men, the village of Stafford had cheered. There were still other outlaws though, other villages being terrorized. With Ariadne’s influence, he’d rallied other men to his cause. They roamed across the land, numbers growing with every year. Men were eager to join him and fight against the corruption of both their lords and the outlaws they failed to protect them from. Villages freely offered them food and supplies when they rode past.

He leaned back in his chair of the main tent of his current camp, only half-listening as various messengers and scouts began to supply him with the day’s information. Much of it was routine and uninteresting.

Ariadne sat on his armrest as she often did, invisible to everyone else in the room.

“Is this man boring you, Jareth?” she asked. He didn’t bother to correct her on his name anymore. For whatever reason all the goblins called him that and their queen did too. By now, he had internalized it. It was a waste of time to argue. “I can remove him if you want.”

“No, you can’t,” he whispered. “ _I_ can remove him if I want. You think I don’t know how it works by now? Without me, your powers are useless in this world.”

Ariadne scowled, a rare occurrence these days. “You know nothing of my powers,” she said.

Jareth shrugged. He tried to return his attention to the man in front of him, but constant little… things kept distracting him. Several goblins dashed between the small buffet tables that were already laid out, their movements rapid, yet constant. They weren’t supposed to be able to make the trip, but they did so anyway. And out of the corner of his eye, a glimmer…

He turned his head towards it. It was the pendant Ariadne wore around her neck. While the rest of her wardrobe often changed, the pendant was constant.

“Is there something special about that?” he whispered. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it.”

Ariadne chuckled. “After all these years I thought you’d never ask,” she said. “It’s the source of many of my… how would you put it… _useless_ powers.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

“But like you said,” she continued. “You know how it all works by now.”

Once upon a time he would’ve bit back with a sarcastic retort. Now he simply sighed as she pointed out that he really ought to be listening to the current messenger.

Her words had a way of sinking into him. It was very easy to obey.

As he took in the remainder of the man’s report, one named stuck out. Jareth waved him silent.

“Repeat that last part again,” he said.

The man swallowed. “Certainly,” he said. “Lord Baldric has returned from his niece’s wedding. He and his entourage will be at their castle until at least the spring, so we should avoid those lands until… Lord Jareth?”

“He was going to kill you,” Ariadne whispered close into his ear. “A child. Out of greed for land and property.”

“He didn’t though,” Jareth muttered. “The man let me go.”

Ariadne let out a scoff.

“You think that was _him_?” she said, leaning back. “ _I_ was the one who gave him that dream!” Her eyes narrowed. “That man would’ve murdered you in cold blood.”

“Lord Jareth?” the messenger repeated.

Jareth’s grip on his sword tightened. He stood up.

“Lord Baldric is an insult upon his lands. Let this be a future message that not even the lords of the realm are beyond our judgement,” he said. “We attack.”

* * *

They stormed the castle within a fortnight. If anyone other than himself had proposed the attack, his men would have laughed in their face. But as those who had served beneath him knew, the ordinary laws of what was possible and what was not never applied to him.

His men quickly took the outer walls. Jareth made his way towards the inner sanctums, hungry to drag the old man out.

A child. He would’ve murdered a child.

Guard after guard he cut down until one solitary knight blocked his path.

“Out of the way, old man,” Jareth snarled.

“Old man? You’re hardly the flower of youth yourself!”

Sword parried sword in earsplitting succession. Jareth gritted his teeth. Where was Ariadne? She always liked to help him with the more annoying ones.

The other man was stronger, but Jareth was quicker. Faster. If he could just tire him out…

There was something familiar though about the way that the knight moved. Jareth dodged gracefully backwards and the man stiffened.

“Gareth?” the knight said.

Jareth froze. It had been over a decade since he’d last heard that name. The man took off his helmet.

It was Edric.

“I thought you were dead,” he was saying. “The plague that killed father… Where have you been?”

Jareth blinked incredulously.

“Where have _I_ been? Where were you all those years?!”

“That… that doesn’t matter,” Edric said. “I came back and everyone had died. _You_ had died.”

“I was chased away,” Jareth said. Anger coursed through him, making his fingers twitch. He tightened his grip around his sword. “By Lord Baldric. Why are you here?! Why are you defending him?!”

“Lord Baldric? Surely not! He’s been a second father to me ever since I returned!”

“He was going to kill me! He took our lands!”

“No,” Edric said. “He kept them safe all those years. As soon as I came home he returned them to me.”

“He’s a coward and a thief!”

“You call him a thief?! Look at yourself! You’re an outlaw! Nothing more than a thief yourself!”

“Shut up! You know _nothing_!”

“What is it that leader of yours calls himself? Lord Jareth? A highly pretentious name, if you ask…” Edric trailed off. His lips moved slowly, comparing the consonants. “It’s you… Gareth… Why?”

“I did what I had to do,” Jareth said coldly. “Perhaps if you’d come back sooner, this never would’ve happened.”

“I wanted to!” Edric said. “You had no idea how many times I was so close to… I was a squire! I had no money, no power outside my liege lord. I had nightmares. Terrible nightmares where I’d take you out of the castle only for you to die, over and over again. Sometimes it’d be from hunger, my lord throwing both of us out into the cold. Other times he’d let you follow me into battle only to be slain before the-”

“Nightmares?!” Jareth’s blood was coursing hot in his veins. “You let me rot in a living tomb because of a couple of bad dreams?!”

“You don’t understand! They-”

Jareth slashed. Edric narrowly blocked it.

“What are you doing?!” his brother yelled.

“What I should've done years ago!”

“Gareth, you’re not making any sense!”

Another slash, another parry. Edric was solely on the defensive, not making any attacks of his own. Somehow that only infuriated Jareth more.

Jareth let out a harsh laugh.

“It was never me!” he yelled. “It was you. _You’re_ the reason they’re all dead!”

His whole life flashed before him as he thrust.

Edric was too slow. Jareth watched in slowed time as his sword stabbed his brother, piercing through his armor and into his chest. Edric’s eyes widened and he stumbled back. Jareth let go of the handle. He stared, hands shaking, as Edric dropped to the floor.

He landed in one giant clatter and then…

Silence.

Edric stood there in horror.

What had he…

The silence was broken by a set of slow, distinctive claps.

“Congratulations, Jareth,” came the voice of Ariadne. “You've just killed your own brother."

 


	4. The Tale of Jareth: Part Three

Jareth stared at his brother’s lifeless body as it lay crumpled on the flagstones.

Ariadne’s claps echoed loud and hollow against the walls of the barren corridor. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the faint clashes of sword against sword. The fighting between his men and the guardsmen of the castle raged on.

None of that mattered anymore.

“Why?” he asked, not taking his eyes off his brother.

Her claps stopped. Several moments later he felt a pair of hands come to rest on his shoulders.

“Tell me,” she said, her voice playful. “Just how invigorating did your bloodlust feel? Did it twist around your mind? Did your veins fill to the brim with fire?”

“Answer me!” he yelled as he spun around to face her.

Ariadne took a step back and pouted. “You’re raising your voice to me? After all I’ve done for you?”

All she’d…

Jareth was still laboring to breathe from the fight. Normally he would’ve reached to his sword for comfort, for assurance… but he didn’t have his sword now. Of course not. It was still lodged in Edric’s breast plate.

The breast plate.

Jareth hesitated. He didn’t want to look at the wound. He didn’t want to face what he’d done. It’d make it all the more real. All the more monstrous.

He looked anyway.

His sword had pierced directly through the thickest part of the steel. He didn’t have the strength to do that. No one did. At least… no one mortal.

Jareth tore his gaze away from his brother to stare at Ariadne. He was vaguely aware of her rambling about something, seemingly oblivious of what’d just happened.

He felt like he was going to be sick.

Ariadne had stayed away from their battle, letting brother clash equally against brother, only to return and put her hand behind the finishing blow.

“That is,” she was saying. “I’m sure there _are_ some more unfortunate, but you’re sure putting them to the test. I think just about everyone you’ve ever known is gone now, driven away in part by you. Let’s see, there was your mother and your father, those two peasant girls and _their_ father, and now your brother…” She snorted. “You’re very good at this killing thing, aren’t you?”

Jareth stared at her in disbelief. Some of his past he had told her, but other parts… His life was a broken vase and someone had just tossed him some previously missing pieces. Slowly he tried to place them back together in a way that made sense.

“You’ve been with me this whole time,” he whispered. “When you let Edric and me go, when you let us leave the labyrinth… you never really let us go.”

“Of course not,” she said simply. Almost cheerfully. “Why would I let go my property?”

Jareth’s head spun. All of the disaster in his life… even before the plague… she’d been there the entire time.

And she’d just watched it happen.

“Why didn’t you help?” he asked.

“How many times must we go over this?” she said with a sigh. “I _did_ offer you my help and you didn’t-”

“No, not that,” Jareth said. “You could’ve… you could’ve saved my mother!”

Ariadne’s amusement faded.

“Yes,” she said. “But where would the gain have been in that?”

“The gain?”

“It was never my intention to make you _happy_ ,” Ariadne said. “Quite the opposite in fact.”

Her words hit him in one solid blow.

His father’s continuous abuse of his mother, caused by dreams of perceived infidelity… Lord Baldric vision to spare his life, though Ariadne had admitted to that one… Even his brother…

_I had nightmares. Terrible nightmares…_

Jareth felt sick. His stomach heaved, and he had to fight to keep its contents down. An acrid tinge of it still managed to make its way up his throat. His legs were shaking, weak. He practically fell against the nearest wall for support.

And Moira… She’d taken her own life because…

_I lost her. I didn’t know… Oh God!_

Moira had known Ethel was gone before anyone else had. She’d known while he and the village had still searched and tried to convince her otherwise. She’d known that Ethel was gone, never to return.

Not dead, just simply… gone.

Jareth had told both sisters about the Goblin Queen and the labyrinth. The three of them had made jokes about it. That day Moira and Ethel had been so furious with each other, both sisters pushed to their emotional breaking points.

All it would’ve taken was a careless slip of the tongue, a wish that hadn’t really been meant… but had been said nonetheless.

Jareth straightened slightly, his legs regaining some of their earlier strength. He pushed himself off the wall and directly faced Ariadne.

The Goblin Queen.

“What happened to her?” he gritted through his teeth.

She actually had the gall to blink at him in confusion. “Who?” she asked blankly.

Her constant mind games, irritating even in his best of moods, were quickly pushing him into a new rage.

“Ethel,” he said. “What happened to Ethel?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have the slightest-”

“Did Moira wish her away?!”

Ariadne paused at that. 

Her face settled into a mask of complete indifference as she regarded Jareth cooly. After a moment, she slunk over to him. She tilted his chin up with her finger and smiled.

“Even if she was,” the Goblin Queen said. “That would be a private matter between me and the deceased wisher.”

Jareth pushed her away with both hands. He stared at her in horror.

“What the hell did you do to her?” he breathed.

“I’m the Goblin Queen,” she said with a casual shrug. “Attempt a guess.”

He stood there, speechless, as she started to laugh. Her voice rang out rich and terrible, the sounds sending shivers through his skin and into his bones.

His whole life, everyone he’d ever known, had been controlled string by string as if part of some ghastly marionette show. Ariadne had played with them all, enacting out her personal fantasies of death and destruction, letting them all destroy each other for… for what? For her amusement? He couldn’t conceive of another purpose. They were all dead, and she was just standing there. Laughing.

And then it caught his eye…

Nestled in the hollow of her pale throat, it dangled, glistening.

_I thought you’d never ask. It’s the source of many of my… how would you put it… useless powers._

Ariadne was a witch. A cold, black-hearted witch who survived off the misery of others. She’d seemed immortal… was immortal. If this didn’t work, she’d mostly kill him on the spot.

But death was hardly a threat after everything else she’d taken from him.

Jareth lunged forward before she could realize his intentions. He grabbed the medallion - snapping it from its cord - and plunged the sharp ends into her chest mid-laugh.

Ariadne silenced immediately. The Goblin Queen stared at him in shock for several seconds. She grabbed his hand as it remained clutched into the pendant, cementing it to her chest. Both watched as the blood slowly blossomed beneath the polished metal. It trickled down her chest, dyeing her ivory dress a vengeful crimson.

Then her lips curved into a small smile, her last beguiling smile. Her fingers loosened around his wrist and she toppled backwards to the floor. As her head hit the stone cobbles, a bright light engulfed the entire corridor.

Jareth stretched his arm out, attempting to shield his eyes until the light faded, but it only seemed to intensify with each passing second. It pierced through him, burning first his eyes and then his chest.

He gasped for breath but no air rushed in…

* * *

When Jareth woke he was lying face down on the floor, his cheek pressed into the cold stone.

His head… didn’t ache actually. His mind was strangely clear. And despite sensing the chill of stone, his skin wasn’t cold itself. His skin wasn’t anything. He felt nothing. No hunger… no thirst…

Which meant that he had to be dead. In claiming Ariadne’s life, she’d managed to claim his own. The thought wasn’t all that depressing. He could do with a rest.

Slowly Jareth pushed himself up onto his knees and looked around. He still wasn’t sure if he had gone to heaven or to hell, and his current surroundings weren’t making it any easier to guess. At least not initially.

He was kneeling in a spacious hall of polished white marble. Open windows littered the walls, bathing the place with crisp sunlight and a gentle breeze.

To anyone else it would’ve been undoubtedly heaven. It had all the right atmosphere and serenity.

However Jareth knew he’d been here before, long long ago. The memories were slow at first, mere trickles, but they soon gathered into a rushing stream.

It was the witch’s palace. The place where everything had first begun to fall apart, even if he hadn’t known it then. A citadel of deception. A nesting place of evil.

It other words: hell.

In a daze, he stood and made his way slowly over to one of the many windows. The labyrinth from his memories stretched beneath him, its white walls gleaming harshly in the sunlight. The sheer intensity would have hurt his eyes… providing he could still feel.

He stared out for as long as he could before he couldn’t take it anymore. He turned away, his chest unstably hollow. He could feel his heart beating within, but even it felt somewhat shriveled.

Suddenly Jareth did feel something. Something very cool and heavy was pressing down against his chest. He looked down to see the pendant hanging from a simple cord around his neck. The metal was smooth and deceptively free of the blood it’d just been drenched in. He clasped his hand around it, letting the slight chill sink into his palm.

It was his one source of feeling at the moment. His one tie to the mortality he’d once had, and yet… 

No. It was an object of dark magic, sustaining the ageless witch through all her years. It was anything _but_ a tie to mortality.

He dropped it, and it swung briefly before coming to a rest with an empty thud in the center of his chest.

Was that it then? Was this the end of his fate? He hadn’t expected full redemption, but to be condemned to hell for eternity, to this hell with its mockingly white walls and white floors and white everything… He would’ve chosen Dante’s inferno any day over this deceitfully pure prison.

His feet began to wander and Jareth let them.

He hadn’t gotten very far when there a flash of dark brown out of the corner of his eye. He vacantly turned to face it.

It was a small goblin, clothed in a white tunic. It stood now, unmoving in the center of the hallway as it stared at him with large, open eyes.

Another torment. Perhaps if he just ignored it…

“King!” it shouted in a loud, shrill voice. “New king!” And then it threw itself on the floor, its arms outstretched in front of him.

Jareth took a step back in shock.

“What did you call me?”

“New king!” the goblin repeated, not raising its head from the floor. “Queen is dead! So you is King!”

The Queen…

Had he misinterpreted his new lack of feeling and location? Was it possible he hadn’t gone to hell after all?

No, a small voice in his head whispered to him. You’re just in a different one.

Jareth dismissed it. Not being dead meant there were still possibilities. He wasn’t condemned to eternal damnation just yet.

“How…?”

“You have all Queen’s powers,” it said, lifting an arm to point directly at him. At the metal pendant. “You is King now.”

King. It certainly had a nice ring to it, but king of what? He surveyed his first potential subject and sneered in disgust.

If he did indeed have all of Ariadne’s powers now, he’d manage to find creative uses for them. But as for a kingship, _this_ kingship… he’d rather pass.

“How do I get back?” he asked.

At this the goblin raised its head. It blinked in confusion. “Back?”

“Yes,” Jareth snapped. “To my world.”

Ariadne had done it easily enough. Of course, she’d always been invisible while doing so, but Jareth would manage to find a way around that.

“But… but this is your world.”

Jareth strode over and the goblin squeaked in terror. He lifted it up by the collar until it was at eye level.

“ _This_ is not my world,” he growled.

“You is King!” it gasped. “World and King are the same!”

The goblin babbled a bit more before Jareth threw it down on the floor in disgust. He wasn’t going to get anything intelligent from it.

He wandered the halls, searching for a goblin who could string more than five words together at the same time. The creatures seemed to pop up in almost every other corridor. They initially greeted him with a mixture of enthusiasm and reverence but were soon left gulping in fear. None of them had the information he wanted.Over and over again, he interrogated them until finally he found one that had some answers.

But they weren’t the ones he wanted.

“What do you mean I can’t go back!?” Jareth snapped.

The small cowered in one of the many white, marble corners. It was a wretched old thing. Its little white robe was tattered in places and barely covered its knees. Jareth towered over him, barely resisting the urge to throttle it.

“You is the king!” it squealed just like all the others. “King lives in his kingdom!”

Jareth bit back a howl of rage. He was exhausted with repeating himself. “I am not your king! This isn’t my world! I never asked for this!”

The most frustrating thing about it was how true it was. Maybe if he’d been expecting it… if he’d known in advance that this would happen, then he wouldn’t have…

But in those fateful seconds, all he’d wanted - all he’d wished for - was her death and the possibility of finally being free.

“King can only go over when we all go.”

Jareth snapped back to attention.

“What did you say?”

“King goes when we go.”

“And when’s that?”

The old goblin stared up with him with annoyingly weepy eyes, “When we’re asked to?”

He was about to ask who the hell would ever ask the goblins to visit when he froze.

Many people did. His brother certainly had, wretched day it’d been. He’d suspected Moira had; Ariadne had all but confirmed it. Only God knew how many others had called upon the miserable creatures by accident or otherwise.

Well, that was one trait of the old queen’s that he was never adopting. Killing, he supposed, wasn’t the most virtuous of acts, but harming children was just distasteful.

And yet it seemed to be the last remaining connection to his world. Perhaps he’d be able to go just the once, use the evil magic to get back and then run before it could take hold of him again. Perhaps he could just refuse to go…

Jareth caught the goblin trying to sneak away out of the corner of his eye. It was making pathetic sniveling noises as it crawled to freedom. He felt a headache coming on… It seemed he hadn’t quite lost his sense of pain and discomfort after all. Sharp pangs echoed behind his temples.

The goblin was moving so slow… so agonizingly slow…

Jareth kicked it, and it quickly scampered off. A silent feeling of relief followed, but it only lasted until the next corridor.

The goblins learned quickly to avoid their new majesty’s temper.

* * *

As the magic would have it, Jareth didn’t have a choice. One minute he’d been imagining new torments for his pathetic subjects, the next he was standing in squalor.

He blinked in surprise.

A woman with a lined face and dirt-stained hands blinked back. She was holding a baby.

“I wished for the Goblin Queen,” she said.

“She’s… been indisposed,” he found himself saying.

Jareth glanced around. He was standing outside in some sort of narrow alleyway. The stench was foul; he couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose. It was dark, although between the overhanging rooftops it was difficult to see the stars. In the distance, he could hear the sound of drunken laughter and squalling infants.

He almost sighed with relief. The halls and halls of pristine white had been starting to drive him mad.

How long had he been king for? It seemed like forever, but when he started to think logically about it, it couldn’t have been that long. Weeks perhaps? Or had it been only days?

This was his chance. He had to take it.

Jareth glanced down both directions of the alleyway. It didn’t matter what was down either one. He just needed to get away…

A hand clamped down on his wrist as he started to bolt.

“What are you doing?” she asked, almost… angrily.

“What am I doing? What the hell are you doing?!”

The woman released her grip, but stood her ground. “We’re all told the stories,” she said. She paused, then held out her baby. “I summoned you. So take her.”

“What? You called me on _purpose_?”

“I know about the deals. In exchange for her, I want you to erase these memories. Give me new ones, me and the midwife. Have us believe she died in childbirth. That she was respectfully buried.”

Jareth gaped at her. He didn’t know how to tamper memories, how to respond to this mad woman, how to anything.

“No,” he finally said.

“No?! You’re from the goblins! You’re not supposed to say no!”

“I’m not from the gob-“

“Nevermind,” she snapped. “I don’t care about the memories. Just take her and be done with it!”

“But I don’t-“

“Take her!”

The woman practically dropped her baby into his arms. His hands slipped, barely managing to catch the infant.

“Wait, I-“

But the woman was already running off, vanishing into the darkness of the alleyway. Jareth took a step after her and promptly stepped in some unidentifiable muck. He grimaced in disgust.

He looked down at the baby in his arms, his brain not fully comprehending what had just happened. He couldn’t just leave the child in the alleyway, but he also couldn’t waste this chance. He could always flee now and find someone to give it to later…

Jareth felt someone tug on his trousers.

A particularly hairy goblin with nubbly horns was standing by his feet. Its hands were outstretched to take the baby.

Jareth looked around in despair. He was too late; the magic had already returned him to the wretched castle. Or maybe there was no ‘too late.’ Maybe he was always destined to return.

Jareth refused to give the baby to the goblin.

“What are you going to do to it?” he asked.

“It’s goblin. Part of the labyrinth.”

He looked at the babe sleeping peacefully in his arms.

“No. She’s human.”

“It’s goblin now. Same as all of us.”

Jareth began to protest further, but really, what could he do? He had no idea how to take care of an infant. 

His mind detached as he watched himself hand over the small creature to the hairy goblin. As it trod out of the room, Jareth felt as though there was something he really ought to remember… something very important… a someone perhaps… small and giggling with a large bush of curls…

His fingers absent-mindedly stroked his pendant.

The fleeting thought evaporated.

He shook his head as he returned to the present. Oh well. It couldn’t have been that important.

Suddenly Jareth was aware of a terrible stench; he covered his nose.

It seemed the muck from his boot had travelled back with him. He later had several of the goblins attempt to scrub it clean. Nothing they did was able to remove the smell, and at the end the goblins smelled just as bad as the boot.

Their frowns of displeasure as they left amused him. Perhaps the stench could become a torment in and of itself.

* * *

Despite his initial protestations, Jareth soon took another child… and then a third. It was hard to feel guilty when the magic forced him there and forced him back. However, even without that rationalization, it grew rather easy rather fast.

Both newborns and half-grown children were wished away. Jareth often had to personally collect the infants, but the children tended to be transported straight to the throne room of his labyrinth while he dealt with the wisher.

Some of the children had been abused. Their skins were mottled with bruises.

So many more were simply… unwanted. They were the children born out of wedlock, the unwanted daughters, the latest sibling in a line of too many mouths to feed…

And he was the garbage collector. The merciful alternative to infanticide.

After awhile, Jareth started to take a sadistic pleasure in the collection, twisting a knife of guilt into anyone he could. Some of them pleaded that they hadn’t meant it, that they’d acted on impulse, but their cries fell on deaf ears. To him, anyone who wished away their own flesh and blood, regardless of circumstance, didn’t deserve the child.

The very first time he accepted a runner’s challenge, he didn’t have to do a thing. The pitiful creature got herself helplessly lost within the first hour and then spent the next twelve crying.

Some strange feeling ignited and began to crackle in his heart as he watched her fall apart at the end of it all. She scrambled at his boots, begging, pleading for him to give her baby back.

He simply held her child in his arms, not even tilting his head down to fully regard her.

“Get out of my kingdom.”

And just like that, she disappeared, the tear-stained marble the only sign that a human had been there at all. Jareth frowned as he examined it closer. The marble seemed slightly dingier these days. Browner. Coarser.

It was probably just his imagination.

He passed the child off to one of his many attendants and wandered through the corridors of his castle. Here and there goblins pranced and laughed and shrieked and scurried and thieved and mostly took care to stay out of their king’s way. There were a few who still defied him. The fireys, some of the worms along the outer wall, the more repulsive of the junk people…

And then there was the Wiseman…

Jareth shuddered in disgust. He hated that old man. The way he plodded around, speaking without hesitation or deference, it was like he thought _he_ was the true king of the labyrinth. But whenever Jareth turned around to prepare a suitable punishment, the Wiseman was nowhere to be found. One of these days…

Ultimately though, his kingdom was a good resting place for the unwanted. The denizens of the labyrinth knew no true hunger or pain or fear. At least, not in the way the human world knew it.

And so the years passed.

Every so often Jareth would accept another runner. It didn’t happen very often. Almost everyone who called on him knew exactly who he was and who he would come to claim. However, very rarely there’d be someone who started to regret or claimed they hadn’t really _known_. Half the time he paid them no heed and the other half they were too scared to take on the challenge of running his labyrinth, but once a blue moon he welcomed the entertainment.

Sometimes the runners would get somewhat creative. They’d make a decent amount of progress. Even with them though, Jareth rarely had to interfere. The labyrinth was good at sourcing out those who were not its own, at exploiting their own hidden fears and weaknesses and ensnaring them in one of its infinite traps.

Time and time they stood before him at the end of the thirteenth hour. Each time he turned them away with a smile.

He had rescued another child from its abysmal mortal fate.

* * *

Jareth lounged sideways on his throne, ignoring the cacophony of his subjects. He was finding his immortality somewhat overrated these days. What use was it when every day was the same?

Still, he wouldn’t give it up. He had a position to maintain.

Some years it felt like the number of children being wished away was declining. Perhaps he’d been too lax. The stories seemed to be losing their edge.

Not only that, but many of the ones who did wish for him had a new defiance to them, as if they hadn’t really expected anyone to come. The mortals’ faith in science was rising as their belief and fear of the mystic was beginning to fade. He needed to fix that…

Although there _was_ a new sort of fun in breaking them. There was a sadistic pleasure in seeing the rational ones so terrified by the creatures of magic they’d long since denied.

Jareth suddenly felt the tug of a call.

Speak of the devils.

He followed it to a sparsely decorated bedroom and a terrified young girl.

She stared at him with eyes that were far too young and open. He knew the type; she was most likely a sibling.

“You called me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t think… They say you take children and give dreams.”

Well. She was definitely direct about it.

“That is true,” Jareth said slowly. “But I only take what is freely given. Was the child really yours to give away?”

The girl sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t care!” she screamed. “I hate him! He’s always whining… always crying… always ruining everything!”

Once again, the wretchedness of human selfishness sickened him. It didn’t matter whether this girl was mother or sister; like all the others, the child was better off in the labyrinth.

He was about to refuse the girl’s dreams and return home when he heard a patter of footsteps in the hall. The doorway of the bedroom slammed open.

“Maria! What’s going on?! I heard shou…”

 The new girl’s words died on her lips as she stared at the two of them. 

“…ting.”

Her eyebrows raised and she made the sign of the cross. She quickly rushed between the two of them, her floral skirts swishing as she pushed the first sister protectively behind her. A small gold crucifix hung around her throat and she grabbed it out of some hope for protection. She looked somewhat older than her sister, but not by much.

“What’s going on?” she said coldly. “Who are you?”

“No one of your concern. This is a private matter solely between your sister and I.”

“What are you talking about?” the older sister said. Then she paused, searching the room. She glanced at Maria. “Where’s Fernando?”

“…he’s gone,” Maria said.

The older sister turned on the younger, the mysterious stranger completely forgotten for a moment. She grabbed both the girl’s shoulders, fingers digging tight. “Gone? What do you mean gone?!”

Maria pushed her away, “Exactly what I said! Gone! Don’t look at me like that, you hated him too! Papa doesn’t care about either of us anymore! Everything is always Fernando this! Fernado that! What a good son, Fernando! He was never happy with just daughters… well… now maybe he’ll learn to be grateful with what he has!”

Her older sister slapped her. Maria clutched her cheek in shock and indignation, the skin red beneath her fingers.

The older sister turned to Jareth. “Fernando wasn’t hers to wish away,” she said. “Give him back.”

He was almost moved by the bold display. Almost.

He smiled.

“What’s said is said.”

“What? She’s his sister, not his mother. She doesn’t have any right!”

“She’s a guardian, that’s all that matters.”

“Then by that definition, I have just as much right over him as she does,” she said. “And I demand you return him to me. Right now.”

Jareth opened his mouth to refuse, eager to see the despair take over her valiant features, but then he paused. There was something about the older sister’s eyes… a flicker of something distant and unbending. The black curls of her hair… the fierce curve of her lips as she glared at him, defiant and… unafraid. A fire burned there, deep and passionate.

He wanted to see it crushed beneath his foot.

“There is one way to get your brother back,” he said. “But it is extremely dangerous. Your brother is currently in the castle at the center of my labyrinth. You’ll have thirteen hours to make your way there. Fail and you lose him forever.”

“I’ll do it,” she said without hesitation.

It should’ve have pleased him that she’d taken the bait, but if anything he was even more irritated.

Jareth caught the eye of the younger sister, Maria. She seemed to cower in upon herself, giving her sister dirty, disbelieving looks. The perfect coward.

“I’m not quite finished,” he said to the older sister. “There is a catch. As you were not the one to wish your brother away, you can’t run my labyrinth by yourself. Your sister must agree to accompany you.”

“No!” Maria cried. “I refuse!”

“You started this,” the older one yelled at her. “By God in heaven and all the demons in hell, you are going to help me fix it.”

Maria started to cry, but her wails fell on deaf ears. The older sister yelled at Maria until she finally accepted through her tears.

Jareth deposited them on one of the hills outside his labyrinth, leaving them with the extra challenge of even being able to figure out how to enter. Maria burst into tears all over again.

The first hour had begun. 

* * *

The older one’s name was Isabella, he soon learned.

It hadn’t been that hard to discover. All the younger one had done since the clock began was whine and scream her name. He quickly muted the crystal he was watching from. When even their silent images began to give him a headache, he tossed it aside and watched the toddler wander around the thrown room floor as various goblins poked and prodded at him. He didn’t seemed fazed by them in the slightest and chatted with the creatures in equally broken sentences.

When Jareth was bored with that, he pulled out another crystal. It took him awhile to realize where they were, but even then…

No, that couldn’t be right.

They shouldn’t have gotten that far already. They were already within the labyrinth and deep within the initial stone portion, quickly on their way to breaking into a new section. Not even a full hour had passed yet. He focused the crystal closer.

Isabella had apparently gotten her younger sister to shut up. Maria was trailing several steps behind her, clearly sulking, but not causing trouble either.

Well, that wouldn’t do at all.

Jareth reached out to raise a stray root from the ground. It snagged Maria’s foot and she tripped, hitting the dirt with a silent cry. Their reactions were just slow enough and the gap just wide enough for him to construct a new wall between them.

He smirked to himself as he watched the sisters realize what had just happened. They rushed forth, their fists banging on both sides of the wall.

He vanished the crystal again and made his way out of his throne room. He stopped in a hall that provided him with a good viewpoint of that particular section.

As fun as the initial separation had been, it wasn’t a direct solution. If anything, the older sister would only move faster once she’d dried her tears. He regretted that he hadn’t made it a stipulation that they both make it to the center.

Regret wouldn’t solve anything though. No, it was time for… _subtler_ manipulations.

Even though he couldn’t see them from this distance, he could sense the two sisters. They were intruders, as fully un-magical as the labyrinth fully was, brown pinpricks against the verdant green.

Within a blink he was leaning against a stone wall, watching as Maria sulked on the labyrinth floor. He could feel Isabella already growing further and further away, but Maria hadn’t moved an inch from where they’d been separated.

“Your sister is a terrible bore,” he said.

Maria jumped. She looked warily at Jareth, as if expecting him to do something nasty, and then sighed.

“You’re telling me.”

Jareth fought the urge to roll his eyes. This would be so easy it wasn’t _fair_.

“She didn’t even ask you about how you felt. About what you went through before you wished for me,” he said. “And then she ordered you here like a slave… not a very fair relationship.”

“No. It isn’t.”

He smiled and pushed himself away from the wall.

“You were right earlier. I do bestow dreams. Sometimes. Would you a like gift?” he asked, holding out a newly manufactured crystal.

Maria stared at it as he danced it back and forth between his hands. Her eyes slowly darkened, entranced by the movement. She stood up and moved hesitantly closer.

“But that’s just a crystal…”

“Just a crystal?” he said, feigning shock. “Maybe on the outside, yes. But so many things are much more than what they first seem.”

Already he could feel the images, the future memories bleeding out of his crystal and into her head. He wouldn’t have to explain any further. Once people noticed his gifts, truly noticed them, they understood. She reached out to touch it…

Jareth drew his hand back.

Maria shook out of her trace. She stared at him in confusion and slight indignation, as if he’d just personally robbed her.

“Not quite yet,” he said with a dangerous smile. “You see, my gifts always come with a price…”

* * *

Isabella stood before him in the throne room. Jareth sat in his throne, staring at her coldly.

“Where is my brother?” the girl asked, voice smooth despite the situation.

“I’m afraid that’s for you to figure out,” he said.

“No,” she said. “Your labyrinth was for me to figure out. And I did.”

Jareth was bending his own rules. The girl had found her way to the center of the labyrinth. If he was being fair, he ought to have returned her brother to her.

But was this _really_ the center? Was it center really just a place? Wasn’t it more of a perception? Surely, it was a bit of both.

As long as he held onto that, the girl hadn’t beat him.

She couldn’t beat him.

Not to mention that he still had… a back-up plan of sorts…

He shook his head. “This is all the labyrinth,” he told her.

With a flick of his eyes, a clock hung itself on the wall behind the girl. She turned, staring at it. Less than two minutes remained.

He watched Isabella bite her lip, clearing trying not to panic.

“Tick tock,” he trilled.

“Shut up,” Isabella muttered.

His nostrils flared at that. “Be careful, girl,” he said, a steel-edge to his voice. “You can’t imagine the punishments I’ve doled out over such insolence.”

“I’d like to see you-” she started.

And then she paused. The clock’s ticks continued to pierce the air.

“To who? Your subjects?” she suddenly asked.

“What?”

“I had it right,” she breathed. “I had it right the whole time. As soon as I reached the castle, it should’ve been over. This is all just your last cowardly trick!”

Jareth scowled. What was she…

“Punish your subjects all you want!” Isabella cried out triumphantly. “Punish them and torment them and confuse them to the end of time, but I…” She took a deep breath. “I have made my way to the castle beyond your goblin city and you have no power over-”

The air was knocked out of Isabella’s lungs as Maria tackled her to the ground. The older sister flung out her arms to protect herself as Maria’s fingers shot out, pushing… clawing…

Isabella managed to push her sister off her, her chest heaving in and out with exertion. She stared at her attacker and her eyes widened in shock.

“Maria?!” she gasped. “What… _why_?!”

Her younger sister said nothing, merely gazing down at her hands with a shadowed expression.

Jareth smiled.

Isabella twisted to face the Goblin King, her mouth gaping in disbelief.

“You!” she accused, her face twisting as her voice dripped with pure malice. “I should’ve-“

But Isabella was cut off a second time, this time by the spine-numbing sound of the clock sounding out thirteen hours in deep, hollow tolls. With each one, the sisters lost some of some their focus, their colors blurring. The older one reached out towards him and then vanished completely.

Jareth smirked at the empty space she’d once occupied.

He remained undefeated.

* * *

One day, Jareth felt new type of summoning tug.

At first he hadn’t even reacted, expecting the magic to wish him away to wherever it saw fit, but after several hours of redesigning the southern oubliettes he realized that he hadn’t been forcibly called yet. And the tug was still there.

He was intrigued by this new, optional summon. He reached out, attempting to follow its path across the two worlds as he always did, and was promptly blocked. Shaking off the mental slap, he held his mind back and examined the source.

If his normal summons were akin to a temporary bridge, then this was a barely a string tied between two decaying tree stumps.

Of course… what did he have to lose?

He reached along the minuscule connection. Impossibly, it seemed to grow even smaller as he traversed its length. He felt himself being squeezed, his mind and body pressed together into a single point, and still he pushed forward.

Suddenly he popped out on the other side and… ruffled his feathers?

Jareth was perched on a large tree branch, his vision sharp and alien. He couldn’t turn his eyes, but he could turn his neck… and turn and turn… His beak snapped slightly in the night air.

Well. This was new.

He disregarded the transformation for the time being.

He could tell simply by the feel of the air that he’d made it to the human realm. There had to be a reason for it. Someone had called him… but who?

He scanned his immediate surroundings. There were no nearby humans. No teary-eyed mothers with sleeping infants. So why was he here? What other purpose could anyone have with him?

His eyes settled on a nearby house. An open window rested directly parallel with his current branch. Light was spilling out from whatever room lay beyond. Jareth fluttered awkwardly over to its sill and peered inside.

An old woman was hunched over a desk illuminated by a single candle, scribbling what appeared to be some sort of manuscript. Even with his improved vision, he couldn’t make out any of the words. He attempted to shuffle closer, perhaps enter the room itself, but some invisible force stopped him at the threshold.

He ruffled his feathers and waited. And waited. The old woman continued to write, oblivious to her new visitor.

Perhaps this wasn’t what he’d been summoned for. Perhaps there was something else nearby… But every time his patience drained and he was gripped with the urge to fly away, something stronger told him that he was exactly where he needed to be.

After a great long while the woman stood up and stretched. Her grey hair was elegantly pulled back and pinned in a bun. Around her neck lay a simple gold chain and crucifix. The woman glanced at the window and then paused.

Jareth froze, not sure what to do now that he’d been spotted. He hardly cut an imposing figure in this form. He wasn’t sure if he even had any of his magic at his disposal. He was completely defenseless…

And completely anonymous. For the first time in centuries, his reputation did not precede him.

He stayed perched on the sill as the old woman approached.

“Why hello there, little one,” she said in a slightly raspy voice. She paused with her hand half-outstretched, fully expecting him to flee. Her eyes widened slightly when he did not move a feather. “Well, aren’t you a peculiar creature?”

Jareth blinked, and the old woman smiled.

“I don’t have any mice for you I’m afraid,” she continued. “But I do a have a new story. Well…” Her eyes suddenly darkened. “It’s more of a guide really. And a warning. Though most won’t know it until they need it. Would you like to see?”

 He gave a small hoot, and she extended an arm. A part of him internally retched, but he’d been called here for a reason. It seemed he had no choice but to humor the crone. Jareth hopped onto her arm, and she effortlessly carried him over the building’s threshold.

A shock ran down his owlish spine as they approach the parchment and its words became legible.

The manuscript was many pages long, neatly laid out in various piles and all crammed with a tight, cursive script. The penmanship was quite impressive for one so old… 

However it was the title written at the top of the main page that grabbed his full attention.

 _El Laberinto_.

* * *

“Please, sire! I didn’t mean to knock over that statue! I’ll do anything! Just please, _please_ don’t drop me!”

Jareth yawned as he gripped one his goblins tightly by the collar, dangling it over the Bog of Eternal Stench. Just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, he felt one of the small book summons at the back of his mind.

In the centuries since it’d been published, the old woman’s book had been translated into countless languages and had slowly made its way around the world, frightening some minds and enchanting others. Not every reading resulted in a summon. In fact, as far as he’d been able to tell, most didn’t. The readers who called him had to be particularly ensnared by it, the dead woman’s tale resonating some deep core within them.

Of course, the greatest irony was that the book did not serve as a warning. People still wished children away, albeit more and more infrequently as the years passed.

And it most definitely had not served as a guide. His labyrinth remained twisted and proud and unbeaten.

For his part, Jareth had learned to ignore most of the book summons. Unlike direct wishes, he had the option to and very rarely did anything happen from them. Boring as his realm was, watching a child read a book in silence for hours was even more so.

However, he was feeling particularly apathetic that day and followed the call, instantly vanishing and dropping the hapless goblin into the bog in the process.

Jareth blinked his eyes in the harsh daylight to find himself in what looked to be a rather large park.

The concept of parks still amused him, the humans now adopting nature into manageable chunks, just as one would a cat or dog.

He searched for the one who’d called him, trying to spot anyone holding a book. There was no one.

Jareth was beginning to wonder if the magic had made a mistake for once when he heard the voices.

They belonged to children and they were arguing. He flew in the direction of the source, coming to rest in a tree right above the main conflict.

Nearby lay what was called a ‘playground’ these days. It swarmed with children and, beyond that, mildly disinterested parents. Below was a shaded grove, just barely out of sight from watchful eyes. Several boys were clustered around a smaller girl, harassing her.

“Leave her alone!” another girl suddenly shouted.

She stomped over through the trees from the playground, inserting herself between the victim and the bullies. Her long black hair had been braided into pig tails. She stuck out her lip, her eyes blazing as she stared down the bullies.

“Yeah? Or you’ll do what?” one of them asked.

“I’ll…” She raised her shoulders back. “I’ll wish you away to the goblins!” 

The group laughed. The pig-tailed girl’s cheeks burned, but she stood her ground.

“Goblins aren’t real, stupid,” another one eventually said.

“How do you know?” she said.

“Because we do. Maybe if you didn’t always have your nose in those stupid books of yours, you’d know what’s real and what’s only in baby stories.”

“They’re not baby stories,” the girl muttered.

“Yeah, whatever,” a boy said. “Now get out of the way.”

He reached out to push her aside.

“Kyle? Brian?” a parent’s voice shouted in the distance. “Are you causing trouble?!”

“No!” two of the boys shouted back.

All the boys looked at each other, and then one snorted in annoyance.

“Come on,” he said, motioning for the rest to leave. “Girls are lame anyway.”

When they’d gone, the pig-tailed girl rested her hand on the shoulder of the younger one.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” the younger one said softly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Thank you, Sarah.”

Jareth followed the girl, Sarah, for a while after that. There was definitely something intriguing about her. She definitely had courage and spirit… and to brazenly threaten her foes with his goblins… she’d make for an especially entertaining runner.

He watched as the girl continued to play for a bit more before leaving the park with her father. Jareth cautiously swooped from tree to tree, following them. A young puppy greeted the two humans with enthusiastic barks when they arrived home. He watched from various windows as the two made dinner, put on a television program, had some quiet reading time, and then ultimately went to sleep.

Jareth couldn’t remember a time when he’d been more disappointed. What _good_ was the possible potential when the girl had no siblings to use it on?

The girl’s courageous face as she stared down the bullies… bowed by tears and frustration. Jareth imagined how satisfying it’d be to truly see, and then he shook the thought away. There was no use tempting himself with visions that would never be.

He flew off into the night sky.


	5. The Tale of Sarah: Part Two

Sarah blinked.

“What do you mean he took it?”

“Before we had our current majesty, we had the queen,” Didymus said. He looked up as though his memories were stored somewhere far above. “I remember she was very beautiful. Very beautiful, yes.”

“Okay… very beautiful. _That’s_ helpful,” Sarah said flatly. “So he stole his powers from her and became ruler in her place, yeah? That means I just need to… oh…”

“What is it, my lady?”

“He stole them from her and became the next ruler,” Sarah said, thinking more out loud to herself than answering the others. “If I manage to steal them from him, then I might…”

“Hmmph,” Hoggle snorted. He crossed his arms. “That’s why I said, better off leaving all this alone.”

“I can’t, Hoggle. How many times do I have to tell you, I just can’t. Not when Karen’s life is at stake. There’s gotta be some way to…” Sarah took a deep breath. “What else do you know him and the previous queen?”

“A decent amount,” Didymus said. Sarah listened, half in eagerness and half in shock, as the old fox told her more and then more still, beginning with what was apparently Jareth’s initial encounter with the labyrinth and ending with the battle in which he’d finally claimed its crown. “Of course,” Didymus said. “That part is ultimately mere gossip. Only a scant handful of us were present at the battle. Some of them continue to swear it was the queen that attacked first. The others maintain it was our current king.”

Sarah sat in silence, tapping her chin as she tried to comb over Didymus’s story for any helpful details. If the goblins’ tale was true, that pendant could be the key to everything… but there was no way he’d let her have possession of it for long. At least not voluntarily.

And then of course there was that little problem of potential unwanted royal succession…

“What about you two?” Sarah asked, turning her attention to Ludo and Hoggle. “There’s gotta be something you know.”

“Nope. All that stuff was before my time. And I’m grateful for it.”

“Sorry, Sarahhh…”

Sarah smiled at her giant, shaggy friend despite the rest of her pent up frustration. “That’s okay, Ludo,” she said. Then a thought struck her. “But really? Didymus is the oldest of you three? I would’ve thought for sure that it was… umm…”

She paused, uncertain how touchy the topic of age was among goblins.

“Yes?” Hoggle said, his sharp mind picking up on where Sarah’d been heading. “Go on. Finish your thought.”

“It’s nothing personal!” Sarah blurted out. “It’s just- Oh, Hoggle! I mean, it’s not something I really think about, but you _do_ have a lot of wrinkles.”

Hoggle gasped in offense. “Well, I’ll be!”

“Sorry,” Sarah said with a grin. “I know you’ll forgive me eventually.” Her smile faded somewhat and she bit her lip. “But back to Didymus’s story. Not only did Jareth automatically become the new ruler, but he also had to kill the old one to do so. I don’t think I have it in me to commit murder.”

“Nor should you,” Hoggle said.

“What if I found a way without killing him?” she asked aloud. “Like how in the movies the hero will fight the bad guy but always hold back at the end, towering over him with his sword to his throat and shouting something like, ‘Leave this place and never return!’”

“You really think _Jareth_ would give up his powers cause someone sticked a bit of pointy metal at him?”

“Well… no, but a similar concept, surely.”

“You have excellent courage, my lady… but perhaps slightly too much courage in this instance.” Didymus frowned. ‘The events I just described took place over a millennia ago. His majesty’s powers have only grown since then. I am afraid you do not know the half of them.”

“That doesn’t frighten me,” Sarah said instinctively.

“Oh really?” a voice drawled. “And here I thought you’d actually managed to learn something after all these years.”

Sarah wheeled around. The Goblin King was back, stretched out once again across her bed. She could see a glint of something around his neck. The pendant? She couldn’t see very well as he wasn’t looking at her this time, his face instead focused on some imaginary point on her ceiling. 

Sarah glanced back at her mirror to gauge her friends’ reactions. It was empty.

“What are you doing here?” Sarah said coldly. “I didn’t summon you.”

“Just because someone doesn’t call me doesn’t mean I can’t hear it when they use my name.”

Sarah didn’t say anything. She hadn’t expected to see him again so soon, especially not after all she’d just learned. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? She sat up in her chair, attempting to hold both her neck and her spine as straight as possible.

“So you’ve gone from wishing for a favor, to wishing for a deal, to wishing for my straight out death,” he said. “A rather drastic change of mind for one day, don’t you think?”

“I don’t want anyone dead,” Sarah said. “If you’d truly been listening, you would’ve known that.”

“Details… details…” he said with a wave of his hand. It was rather infuriating; he still wasn’t looking at her.

“Anyway,” Sarah continued. “It’s not like the powers were yours to begin with. I know about the previous queen now.”

Jareth’s head snapped towards her then, his eyes piercing straight through her. Her breath caught, and she temporarily forgot how to inhale. Apparently he’d only been eavesdropping on the last portion of her friends’ conversation. She forced herself to go on, putting on a false sense of bravado.

“What did he say her name was again… Ariadne? It makes sense though if you think about. Did the labyrinth originally come with its own minotaur too?”

“That story is private,” he said icily.

“Not when my step-mother’s life is at stake.”

“Not that again… the woman’s not even your actual mother, so why do you care so much?”

Sarah stared at him, completely dumbfounded.

“She’s my step-mother,” she said. “And we love each other. You don’t have to be biologically related to be family.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Shouldn’t you know that since you were human once too? Surely there was someone that-”

The wood in Sarah’s chair splintered. She crashed through it, hitting the floor and falling backwards over the now broken frame. Something in her back seemed to pop, and she hissed in pain.

After a couple seconds to reorient herself, Sarah groaned and pushed herself back up with her elbows. A slight frisson of fear danced along her nerves. She hadn’t thought he was able to use magic in the normal world.

“Take my advice. Forget about your step-mother,” he said as he examined his nails. It was like the last couple sentences had never happened. “Let your father and brother cry over her ultimately pathetic corpse. I assure you’d be much happier.”

Something snapped in Sarah. She bit back a snarl and lunged towards him, hands aimed directly at his pretty, pale throat. His body vanished into nothingness as her fingertips came within inches of him. The unexpected momentum caused her to hit her bed and continue rolling. She tumbled off the edge and back onto the floor below.

She grit her teeth in pain as she used the side of the bed to haul herself back up. Sarah could hear him tsk-tsking at her from some other new place in her room. She finally spotted him, arms crossed, on the other side of her mirror.

Bastard.

“Very poor show,” he said. “If you want any _hope_ of taking my powers, you’ve got to start doing a lot better than that.”

“Coward!” she yelled. “Come out of there and face me!”

“No thank you. I have no desire to wage war in the human world,” he said with a shrug. “You are, however, welcome to face me at any time of your choosing provided, of course, said confrontation is located within my labyrinth.”

“You mean any time of your choosing,” Sarah muttered.

“Hmm?”

“You control who goes in and out of the labyrinth,” she said reluctantly. The truth of the statement somewhat annoyed her. She made her way over to him and crossed her arms in a mirror image of his, well, mirror image.

Way back when she’d first beaten the labyrinth, her friends had been able to cross between their world and hers at any time. More often than not, her father and Karen had yelled at her to turn down whatever radio they’d thought was playing. But as the weeks and then months had passed, the visits had gotten both shorter and fewer. There was a bridge, her friends had told her. A bridge that normally only existed briefly when someone wished a child away. But her victory had somehow given it a kind of longevity.

Longevity was the key word though… not permanence.

Whatever “bridge” there’d been had finally crumbled completely away by the end of the first year. She’d spent her victory anniversary partying with her friends on opposite sides of her mirror.

It’d stung, but she had reminded herself - continued to remind herself - that she was lucky to still have them at all.

“It’s hardly my choice when you’re the one who has to build whatever bridge or open whatever door there is,” she finished.

Jareth smiled.

“That’s where you would be wrong,” he said. “It is the labyrinth, not me who creates the pathways. It’s the labyrinth who chooses. As it has and always will be.”

“Okay, cryptic… But it’s still not very-“

“You’ve always been able to visit the labyrinth,” he said with a slight roll of his eyes. “You’ve had the ability ever since you beat it. However you never knew you could and therefore never tried.”

Sarah blinked at him.

“What,” she said blankly.

“You are its…” here he paused to shudder, “ _champion_. As I am its king. The labyrinth will welcome you, should you choose to let it.”

Sarah couldn’t help but be suspicious. She regarded him warily.

“How?”

“Can you really figure out nothing on your own?” Jareth said with a sigh. “There are different paths, but - as I’m sure you know by now - mirrors have always been the easiest to traverse. You just walk straight through them. A full-length mirror is the most dignified, assuming you have access to one.”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” Sarah said, although she filed away the information for later use. “I know I beat the labyrinth, but how does it know that? If being its champion is a position like yours, if I’ve secretly had the power to return all this time… wouldn’t that mean that I have…” She paused scarcely comprehending it. “I have magic?

“What you have is merely an incomplete shard. Nothing more. Nothing less. Haven’t you wondered how you’ve been able to maintain contact with your ‘friends’ all these years even after all the other pathways had closed?” 

Sarah frowned. “You just said mirrors were different though.”

“They are not that different,” he said. “When you shattered that room, you shattered the labyrinth itself. It’s been incomplete all these years and very much wants you back.”

“You mean _you_ want me back,” Sarah said in sudden realization. “You want me to challenge you so you can defeat me and take your power back!”

Jareth shrugged. “More or less.”

“Then why- Ugh!” Sarah ran her fingers through her hair in exasperation. “I want you to heal Karen. You want your piece of your magic back. Clearly we both have things that other wants. Why can’t we just work together?!”

“Oh, if it only it were that simple.”

“It very well damn could be if you just _attempted_ to listen to me for once!”

“As I said, I will be waiting should you decide to challenge me.”

“No! Not when there’s another option.”

“And as I said, there is no other option.” Jareth shifted his weight onto his left foot and looked at Sarah in amusement. “If you turn away now, it will be your fault when she dies. How will you live with that guilt, I wonder?” He lightly gasped in mock concern. “And the look on poor Toby’s face when he realizes you valued your pride over that of your step-mother’s life.”

“Shut up. It’ll be your fault, not mine..”

“Sarah Williams,” he said, practically sighing over her name. “I guess she only goes for dashing heroics when it’s her own messes she has to patch up.”

“I said, shut up!”

Her fingers curled around a nearby brush and hurled it at his head, forgetting that there was both a sheet of glass and a separate dimension dividing them. The mirror shattered with an ear-splitting crash.

Sarah was left alone, her breaths heavy in the following silence. She stared emptily at the dull, wooden backing of the old vanity and the few, jagged fragments of glass that still framed it.

Several moments later she heard the rush of footsteps. Her father burst in, his eyes widening at the sight of all the broken glass.

“My hairbrush… slipped,” Sarah said. The words sounded rather pathetic even to her ears, and it didn’t even begin to cover the broken chair by her feet.

Her father frowned.

“I know this hasn’t been easy on any of us,” he started. “But destroying furniture-“

“I know. I know!” Sarah took a deep breath. Her mind was racing with goblins and magic. She reined it in. Returned to ordinary world. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

Sarah’s father continued to peer at her, as if searching for some other unstable sign of distress. His shoulders sagged. “Alright,” he said. “Will you okay cleaning all this up?”

“Yeah,” she said. “See you downstairs later for dinner?”

Her father nodded and then slowly shut the door behind him.

Sarah carefully made her way out of the maze of broken glass and wood. She started to flop down on her bed in exhaustion but then remembered how the Goblin King had just been stretched out over its length. Twice. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. She’d have to wash the sheets before she went to bed that night.

She sighed and laid down on a clean portion of the floor for the time being.

Sarah had found a cure. Technically.

But was it worth the cost?

* * *

Sarah had trouble sleeping the next couple of nights, even after she’d tossed all her sheets and pillowcases into the laundry and had vacuumed up every last trace of the Goblin King’s presence.

Her family visited Karen at the hospital every day now.

Sarah would pick up Toby from his elementary school and drive to the hospital in her old, beat-up Honda. Once there, Toby would ramble on and on about what he’d learn in school that day as Karen nodded attentively from the small hospital bed. Sarah’s father would join them later after he got off of work.

It’d been hard enough as it was, and now… Now Sarah barely knew what to feel anymore.

Any normal sense of grief, if you could call coping with terminal illness normal, had twisted into something confusing and perverted. Guilt haunted her, twisting in her gut like a knife.

_You have the power to save her. You have the power and you’re just watching her die._

Toby was currently telling Karen about an annoying new girl named Lindsay and Sarah suddenly realized she couldn’t take it anymore. She ducked out of the room, first to breathe, and then to find the nearest water fountain.

The situation wasn’t that simple, she told herself. She _didn’t_ have the power. Not yet anyway. Whatever “shard” she’d apparently gained - or rather, had stolen - from the labyrinth was weak. Even now she closed her eyes briefly and tried to sense it, tried to sense anything magical floating around her internal organs, anything remotely different or out of place from what she’d felt all her life… and felt nothing.

She wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps Jareth had made the whole “magic” thing up in an attempt to lure her back.

And that was the other thing. Even if she returned to the labyrinth, there was no hundred percent guarantee she was getting back out again. To succeed meant not only defeating Jareth, but also learning how to use his powers, and being able to use them the way she wanted. She really had no idea how they functioned or what their limits were. What if they were only good for spinning dreams and terrorizing hapless goblins? What if the worse _did_ happen and she ended up stuck there?

Sarah reached the fountain and tried to let her head clear as much as possible, letting the cold water hit her mouth and spill down the sides. She wiped it dry with her sleeve and slowly made her way back to Karen’s room.

Toby seemed to be done with Lindsay and had moved onto the frustrating subject of history class. Sarah took a seat by the wall and simply let herself listen to the two talk.

Suddenly she heard Karen gasp, a strangled choke of air.

Sarah’s head snapped up in horror to see her step-mother reaching out towards Toby. Her face was contorted in pain and her hand gripped Toby’s shirt, trapping him even as he stumbled back.

Sarah stared in shock for a second and then her feet kicked into motion. She dashed out of the room, clutching the door frame for support as she pivoted herself into the hall.

There. Several doors down. Two women wearing scrubs.

“Help!” Sarah yelled. “Emergency!”

The doctors acted swiftly. Sarah watched them rush past her. One of them hit a button; Sarah half-expected it to blare out distress call, but it merely blinked on. The other doctor immediately started to examine Karen. She quickly got Toby out of the way, prying Karen’s fingers from his shirt. Toby backed away slowly until Sarah could reach out and wrap her arms around him.

They stood in the corner. Useless.

A couple more doctors arrived. Defibrillators were brought out and used. Karen was hooked up to more machines. Soon the two siblings were kicked out of the room entirely.

They sat in a waiting area outside until their father arrived, his face grim. Sarah glanced at the clock. He wasn’t due to get out of his work for at least another hour. The hospital had notified him then.

“Is she?” he asked.

Sarah closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”

He briefly wandered off and then wandered back. He’d gotten no answers. The three sat together in silence until the doctors finally called for them.

Karen was stable again.

For now.

The knife in Sarah’s gut twisted deeper.

* * *

Sarah picked Toby up from school the next day on foot. Instead of meeting up at the hospital separately, her father wanted to start going together as a family. Sarah was too emotionally exhausted to argue and frankly didn’t see all that much difference in it. At the very least, she’d manage to save a bit on gas. With her lack of employment, every little penny helped.

She and Toby strolled down neighborhood sidewalks, mostly in silence. About halfway home, they began to take a shortcut through the local park.

“Did you used to play here too?” Toby suddenly asked as they passed by the old playground.

Sarah glanced to her right.

It’d been just like any other playground in Sarah’s day, filled past its capacity with kids every afternoon. Even though Toby’s school had just let out, there were only a couple children playing now. It really wasn’t much to look at. Just a plain old swing-set, a stand alone slide, some monkey bars, and a small merry-go-round lifted up about one foot over the wood chips. All of it was the same unpainted metal, a bit dingy now with age. The new park that’d recently opened in Crestwood was a lot more stylish, sporting the latest popular tree-fort type structure and colored plastic overlaying most of the metal and wood bits.

Sarah wondered if it too would fall out of use in time.

“Yeah,” she said. “But after awhile I didn’t play too much on the playground itself. I liked to make up and act out my own stories. Pretend I was on epic quests.”

“You can do that on the playground too.”

“I guess you’re right.”

They walked on and soon it was out of sight.

“What kind of stories?” Toby asked.

“I don’t remember,” Sarah said, despite having precise memories of nearly all of them. She didn’t exactly want to go into depth with them right now. Especially one in particular. “Fantasy stories,” she said vaguely, scuffing a shoe forward as she walked.

“What, like _The Labyrinth_?”

Sarah froze in her steps.

“How do you know about that book?” she stammered.

“I… I read it,” Toby said hesitantly, as if he knew he’d just revealed something he wasn’t supposed to.

She’d taken the utmost care to keep the book hidden from him, keeping it first on the highest shelves of her bookcase where he wouldn’t be able to reach and then eventually taking it with her to college.

He could’ve found his own copy, but Sarah didn’t think that was likely. She’d gotten hers from an old estate sale. In the years since her victory, she’d looked through both major retailers and small secondhand stores and hadn’t found any other copies. Some of the secondhand store owners had heard of the book, but apparently it was out of print. Had been for decades. Several had offered to buy it from her for not a laughable amount. Despite her meager finances she’d held onto it. The book had far too much power in its bindings to fall into the wrong hands…

Perhaps she hadn’t been as careful as she’d thought.

Sarah frowned. “Toby, what did I tell you about going through my stuff?”

“I didn’t!”

“Yeah?” she said. “Where’d you get the book from then?”

“I… don’t know.” Toby paused and his brow scrunched in contemplation. His young mind seemed to be honestly perplexed. “I don’t know where I found it…” he said. “Or when exactly I read it. But I know I did.”

Her unease grew.

“Okay, how did you know I’d read it then?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “I guess I guessed. Everything that I read, you’ve always read before.”

Sarah admitted that that was true, but it wasn’t at all comforting in this instance.

“Yes, Toby,” Sarah patiently said. “But like you said, I read a lot of things. Why did you think of _The Labyrinth_ first?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Toby, if there’s something going on, something that might not be good… you need to tell me about it.”

“ _I don’t know!_ ” His tiny voice cracked. Sarah could see tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “I’m not lying, okay! I know I read the book before. I know I did. I don’t remember exactly when. You don’t remember everything about every book you’ve ever read, do you? And I don’t know why I thought of it first; I just did. Something’s always gotta be the thing you think of first, right?” He pouted, crossing his arms, and stared at the ground. “I’m not lying.”

Sarah looked at her younger brother grimly. Even if he wasn’t lying and directly hiding things from her, something was terribly wrong.

Toby had been wished away to the goblins before he could even walk, let alone form lasting memories. She’d kept a close monitor on him afterwards, careful that none of the goblins, foe or friend, ever interacted with him. It was safer that way.

After the “bridges” had closed and her friends could only appear for mirror chats, true, she’d somewhat relaxed her guard. But even then, Sarah had continued to pump Hoggle for information, if any of the goblins he knew still talked about Toby, if there’d been anything at all out of the ordinary…

Well. Out of the ordinary for magical labyrinth standards at least.

With both her copy of the book and the common goblins accounted for, there was only one person, one… _thing_ , that had the power to plant such knowledge into Toby’s mind.

It’d taken her thirteen hours to run the labyrinth. That meant Toby had been left alone with _him_ for the same amount of time. When Sarah had won, she’d assumed that everything had gone back to normal. But what if she’d been wrong? Who knew what kind of permanent damage could’ve been done, lurking - until now - beneath the surface…

They been standing on the same spot on the path for awhile now. Too long for Toby apparently. He took a couple steps towards home and waited for Sarah, an unsubtle nudge for them to resume walking. Sarah ignored the attempt.

“Okay,” she said, trying to gather as much information as she could before she made any hasty assumptions. There was still a tiny _tiny_ chance she was reading too much into things. “You read _The Labyrinth_. What was it about?”

Toby frowned, although this time he looked more exasperated than particularly concerned about anything. “I don’t know,” he repeated in a half-whine. “It was just some fantasy story. There were no pictures and the words were really small… it was really hard for me to read them.”

Sarah furrowed her brow. “But you still read the book?” she asked.

It wasn’t that Toby didn’t like reading, or that he never challenged himself whatsoever, but it _was_ extremely rare for him to get frustrated with a book and keep going.

Toby was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Someone read it to me, I think.”

Sarah forced herself to remain calm despite the sinking feeling in her stomach. “You mean like Mom or Dad?” she ventured hopefully.

“No… it was someone else…”

“A teacher?”

“Maybe…” Toby said slowly, as though he knew it wasn’t true but was trying to make it stick anyway.

Sarah nearly growled with frustration, but kept things light and simple. She’d already upset him once. He’d clamp down if she backed him into a corner.

“Do you remember if it was a man or a woman?”

“…a man.”

Sarah’s mouth asked the question her brain didn’t want to hear. “Was it a blond man?”

“Yes!” he said, brightening up now. “Yes, it was! How did you know? Do you know him too?”

“Toby…” Her voice was strained. Something was striking her deeper than rage, leaving a kind of despairing resignation in the pit of her soul. Sarah had beaten him, had beaten him fair and square, and he _still_ continued to stalk her brother. Regardless of whether it’d just been one interaction or multiple, he’d broken the rules…

And then she realized.

No matter what she did, he was never going to let them go.

She had something he wanted. No, it was more than that. She held a part of his kingdom. Part of the labyrinth itself. True, he hadn’t made a move until now, but Sarah knew if she didn’t eventually play along, he would start use everything in his power to get her to comply.

Now she knew that “everything” could possibly include Toby.

Sarah didn’t have a choice. Maybe she never had.

She had to go through the mirror and defeat him once and for all.

One final doubt still lingered though… If she ended up being tied to the labyrinth afterwards… unable to get back… Toby would finally be safe, but what about Karen? She could have all the magic in the world, but it wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t use it to save her step-mother.

And what about herself? Would she simply vanish from this world forever? Would her dad have to file some kidnapping report that would never be solved, ultimately losing both a wife and a daughter?

She did know of one surefire way of crossing between the worlds though…

“Sarah?” Toby was visibly worried now. She’d been lost in her thoughts for awhile.

“If I…” she started. “If I disappear… and I’m not back within twenty-four hours. I need you to wish for me. Okay, Toby? Just… wish for me to come to you.”

“What are you talking about, Sarah?” her younger brother asked, his voice shaking. “What do you mean ‘disappear’?”

“I think I know how to heal Mom,” she said. She paused. “No, I _know_ how to heal her. But you have to promise that you’ll wish for me. It is absolutely crucial. Her life might depend on it. Do you understand?”

Toby stared at her in complete and utter confusion, but then slowly nodded his head.

Well, then that was settled.

If she was successful, she’d have her ticket back home… even if it might only be for long enough to cast some sort of healing spell. And if not… well. It would hardly matter then, wouldn’t it?

The two siblings walked the rest of the way home in silence. Toby was still probably shaken from the conversation, and Sarah’s head was busy cramming itself full of mental preparations. Karen didn’t have that much time left to waste.

Sarah would leave that night.

* * *

As her bedroom mirror was now lying in a thousand pieces at the bottom of a trashcan, Sarah took refuge in the upstairs bathroom. She debated locking the door behind her to protect against any last minute interruptions, but ultimately decided against it. If she was to go “missing,” it was best that her disappearance be as unmysterious as possible.

Sarah double-checked that her shoes were tightly laced and then tossed an old messenger bag over her shoulder.

She took a deep breath and faced herself in the mirror.

“Hoggle, Didymus, Ludo,” she said. “I need you.”

A few seconds after the call, her friends appeared inside the mirror. Their faces were glum.

“How fareth thy step-mother?”

“Not well. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling you right now.”

“Sarah,” Hoggle said. “We already told you. You’ll cause more trouble than you can cure if you-“

“Did you know I could go through the mirror?” Sarah asked abruptly.

“Wha… What?”

“Did you know I have the power to go through the mirror? To go to the labyrinth? That I’ve had it the entire time?”

“Well…”

“Yes or no, Hoggle.”

“I…”

“We knew, my lady,” Didymus said. He took off his cap and twisted it in his hands. “However we withheld it from you because we knew it was not safe.”

“Not safe? My step-mother is dying and you didn’t think to bring it up because it wasn’t safe!? Did you somehow forget that there’s a person who’s beaten the labyrinth before? Who was that again? Oh yeah, that’s right. _Me_.”

“Sarah come here. Ludo happy,” her friend rumbled. “Sarah cannot leave. Sarah sad. Ludo… sad.”

Sarah lifted an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“As soon as you step through that mirror,” Hoggle said. “You ain’t _ever_ getting home again.”

“What!? I mean… I figured if I beat the king there might be some strings attached, but I wouldn’t be able to leave even if I just came for a brief visit?”

“When you enter the labyrinth, you’re telling it you’re a part of it. Once you’re a part of it, you stay a part of it.”

“I came to the labyrinth before… I was able to leave then.”

“Yeah, that’s cause you were a runner then. His majesty brought you here. You was foreign.”

“And now I’m not…” Sarah whispered to herself.

The knowledge really shouldn’t have changed things - she’d already accepted the more than likely possibility of never being able to return, but now it was somehow more _final_. She’d be making the decision right now; as soon as she stepped through this mirror she’d be leaving her world forever… Maybe she should go downstairs and talk with her dad again one last time…

No. She’d lose what little there was of her courage.

“I’m prepared for that,” she said. “I still have to go.”

“Sarah, no! You’ll be playing right into his hands!”

“I don’t care! I can’t just sit back and watch Karen die! I can’t watch Toby…  None of you will change my mind. I’m doing this.”

“One does not win battles through rash decisions, my lady!”

“Oh, I’ve had time to think through it plenty enough,” she said. Her fingers came up to press against the glass. It still seemed as solid as ever. How could she possibly have any magical powers?

“Think through it some more then!” she heard Hoggle shout. “Cause of all the bad decision you made the first time here, this is frankly the _worst_ decision of them- Stop! Stop that right now!”

Sarah’s concentration fractured. For a second she’d felt… something. A sort of dimple in the glass. Except it hadn’t been there. Well, not physically at least.

Hoggle was shouting something at her. It was interfering with her focus. She absentmindedly waved her hand over the mirror’s surface and all three of her friends vanished.

Sarah blinked.

Okay. That was new.

Up until now, the connection only broke after the mutual end of a conversation or if either party got interrupted by something. They’d never been able to outright… dismiss one another before.

She felt a chill run down her spine and shook it away.

If she’d been the one to cause that, then it could only be a good thing. She needed all the natural magical talent she could get.

Sarah turned her attention back to the mirror itself. If Jareth was to be believed, she’d be physically stepping through it.

She placed her hands on the edge of the bathroom counter and hoisted herself up, feeling extremely disgusted with herself as her shoes touched the laminate surface. Hopefully it’d be washed not too long after this.

Sarah took a deep breath, and focused…

There! Again a slight dimple, a ripple in the material of the clear surface. She placed her hand against it, and the mirror buckled, threatening to dissolve into a million pieces of star dust, laying wide open the world beyond.

Sarah sucked in a sudden breath and jerked her hand back. The mirror snapped back into reality.

This was it then… She was really doing it…

She was leaving it all behind: her car, her degree, her temp job at the library, her father… Toby… Karen…

The image of the doctor wrestling Toby away from her step-mother’s convulsing form seared itself across her mind.

Sarah closed her eyes and found the ripple again, much quicker this time. Not letting herself think twice about the true cost of what she was about to do, she reached out towards it… and tumbled through.

She hit the sand at a downwards angle and kept rolling, the florescent light of the bathroom suddenly swapped with a blazing sun, its heat searing against her skin. Sarah managed to stop herself halfway down the hill, but her palms were slightly scuffed up with the effort. She hissed against the pain, pushed herself up, and stared.

It was done.

The labyrinth lay sprawled out like a twisting centipede in front of her, brown and dingy and rippling in the desert sun’s hazy glare. A harsh wind blew, catching in the thistle weeds around her. Her palms continued to sting; perhaps she’d picked up a few of their prickles during her fall.

It wasn’t exactly the best start to an epic confrontation.

Hoggle and the others were nowhere to be seen. Not that she’d really expected them to be out here. She’d learned in the intervening years that not many creatures ventured past the outer walls of the labyrinth. And even when the few like Hoggle did, they never wandered far. Even so, she would’ve felt better with them at her side.

Maybe.

They hadn’t been too happy when she’d cut them off. She expected they’d be even less happy to see her in person. Was it possible that she could avoid their lectures now that it was too late to do anything about it?

The wind started to pick up, and Sarah reached in her bag for a hair tie. Nothing had been broken by the unexpected tumble; she’d packed nothing that could break. Just a couple of water bottles… some apples and peanut-butter crackers…

Both her arms were up, half-way through the motion of pulling her hair through the last loop twist when she felt the presence. She ignored it until her ponytail was tightly in place, immune now to the effects of the wind, and then turned.

Jareth was lounging on a nearby rock as she’d expected he would be. As she crossed her arms, he began to clap.

“I have to congratulate you on your stupidity,” he said. “It seems you’re more desperate than I thought.”

Sarah took a deep breath. She hadn’t expected to face him so soon, but if this was it, then she’d give it her all. Her hands gripped her shoulder strap tightly.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she said, one last attempt for a peaceful resolution. No one could say she hadn’t tried.

“On about that again? The labyrinth welcomes you by the way,” he said. His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, and you even brought your new king a gift. How thoughtful.”

Sarah’s brow wrinkled. She was torn between indignation at the insinuation of being his subject and confusion at what he meant by “gift.” Then an apple was suddenly in the Goblin King’s hands. A green apple. Her apple.

By reflex, Sarah yanked open the top of her bag and rummaged through its contents. She’d pack two apples. Only one remained.

Confusion vanished, and her feelings locked onto pure fury. She glared at Jareth as he took his first bite, the crunch echoing in the wasteland.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the usual place,” he said between bites. “ _Do_ take less than thirteen hours this time, won’t you? It gets awfully boring…”

The usual place… Sarah tore her eyes from him to gaze at the castle at the center of the labyrinth. But somehow she could feel now that it wasn’t exactly the _true_ center of the labyrinth. Oh, geographically sure, but… She didn’t even know how to describe it. Magnetically, maybe? It worked like that for the earth’s poles. Or rather magically. All of the labyrinth’s swirling power seemed to converge upon another point… somewhere in the goblin city…

“Sarah?” The voice snapped her out of her trance. She heard him chuckle. “I hope I’m not losing you already.”

She turned to face him with a steady gaze. “It’ll be a piece of cake,” she said.

His lips quirked upwards at that, revealing just the barest glimmer of teeth, and Sarah shuddered.

“Very well then,” he said, picking himself off his rock. He tossed the apple aside. Only a couple bites marred the outer flesh, grains of sand sticking to its white core. “I will await your challenge.”

Sarah could feel him start to disappear.

“Wait!” she cried out before she could stop herself.

He returned to full opacity and quirked an eyebrow.

“I… Why are you going back to the castle?” she asked, mentally kicking herself as she did. “Why don’t you just face me here? Get it over with?”

His face grew unsettling passive as his eyes raked her up and down. She held her breath and forced herself not to glance away.

“The labyrinth doesn’t think it’d be fair,” he finally said.

Sarah stared at him. “The… _labyrinth_ doesn’t think… What are you talking about?”

“Exactly what I just said. It has its own… narrative about it, I suppose.” He shrugged. “It will make no difference in the end.”

Jareth vanished while Sarah was still working through the concept of the labyrinth having some sort of mind and will of its own. Not for the first time, Sarah wondered if perhaps this world had somehow come out of her book. That she was currently standing in one of its pages, and by casting herself as the hero and the goblin king as the villain, her victory had been predestined.

Sarah didn’t much care for the concept of predestination though. Never had. She’d control her own fate, thank you very much.

And with thought in mind, she readjusted her bag and set off down the hill. It took her only a couple minutes to reach the outer walls. The stones were cracked in several places and all stained with age. They lumbered over her, casting her in shadow.

But she wasn’t a fourteen year old girl anymore. The shadows didn’t frighten her. She knew exactly what lay within the walls and was on friendly terms with at least half of the inhabitants.

Perhaps it was a sort of home after all.

First things were first though; Sarah had to find the main gate. She wandered parallel to the labyrinth walls for awhile, keeping an eye out for the pool where she’d first met Hoggle, and then stopped.

What was she doing?

Here she was, going at it like it was a total repeat of last time. Get to the center of the labyrinth. Save her brother.

She wasn’t being forced to retrace her steps, and neither should she.

If she wanted to have any hope of actually defeating Jareth, she needed to find a new way to the center. To learn as much as she could about the “shard” of magic inside her.

Abandoning her search for the pond, Sarah walked straight up to the base of the walls and laid an open palm on the nearest stone. It hummed beneath her fingertips. Then the one next to it started to hum… and the next… as if the rocks could sense her presence.

Well, it made sense. Ludo could speak to the rocks. Get them to do things. And the very first time she’d entered the labyrinth, the gates had opened as soon as Hoggle had turned his attention towards them.

Sarah wasn’t exactly sure how successful she’d be with making a brand new gate where there’d been none, but it didn’t hurt to try.

She put her other hand on the stone and its hum turned into a positive buzz.

“Please move,” she whispered, trying to focus on the patterns of the vibrations as well as her own mental request. The stone trembled for a brief moment but, ultimately, didn’t budge.

Sarah bit her lip. Asking nicely did wonders for certain labyrinth residents, but fell flat on others. The stones, it seemed, fell into the latter category.

“It’d be really _nice_ if you would move,” she repeated, this time with a bit of a bite to it.

Several more stones trembled in response, and for longer, but still failed to make any sort of lasting change.

Sarah twisted her lips in frustration. “Move _now_!” she snapped.

A crashing force ripped its way from the base of the wall to the top. Sarah stumbled back as it coursed through her, raising the hairs on both of her arms and her neck. She stared, wide-eyed, as a whole section of stones shook and then began to groan their way out of their ancient slots. They stacked themselves on top of one another until they left a narrow gap leading into the outer most corridor of the labyrinth and a tall, crooked archway above.

Sarah glanced around, but nope. It was definitely her that’d just done that. Then she grinned.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be a one-sided battle after all.

Sarah didn’t think the stones would close back up anytime soon but hurried inside all the same. Just as she’d had in the years past, she now stood in a straight corridor of stone that stretched in both directions as far as her eyes could see.

She remembered the gaps in this section, so well camouflaged that even after that worm had assured of one, she’d stepped through it with both her hands in front of her, scared that she’d smack straight into solid stone. She could feel them out of the corner of her mind now, pockets dotted all along the inner wall leading to the next ring.

Rather than punch _another_ hole in the labyrinth, Sarah let her feet lead her to the nearest gap and stepped through. Before long she reached her first crossroads, but she didn’t even notice it until after she’d already started walking a couple steps down the leftwards path. She halted and looked back.

On her original quest to save Toby, each crossroad had filled her with uncertainty and just a hint of dread. All she would have needed was the wrong choice in the wrong place, and her brother could’ve been lost to her forever.

But now she’d simply walked on by, as if it’d been just one path the whole time. There was no uncertainty, no confusion. Sarah knew this was the right way to go to… wherever it was she was heading. Could she even call it a labyrinth anymore if she knew all the ways to go?

Sarah didn’t have leisure to ponder that. Even if Jareth hadn’t given her a time limit this time, it still exists; she had no idea how much time Karen had left. She forced herself to keep moving, keeping herself in a half-trance and letting her feet make all her decisions for her.

As she twisted and turned around the various corners, she got the nagging feeling that she’d done this before. No, not before. She knew she’d done it before. More of a before a before, like the dirt paths that people carved through grassy fields because the sidewalks never went directly where they were trying to go.

Sarah let her hand trail against the walls as she walked and hummed a small tune.

Everything was… familiar…

She was a part of the labyrinth, just as it was a part of her. It was the same story, playing out over and over and over again… the ever-twisting marble walls… her brother trapped deep within… and the noon sun beating down, carrying with it the squawking of distant gulls and the scent of the sea…


	6. The Tale of Ariadne: Part One

Ariadne spun in a lazy circle as she made her way through the narrow corridors of the labyrinth. Her white dress fanned around her in the warm sunlight.

She knew every twist and turn of the great structure by memory. It’d be hard not to, seeing as how traversing its length was the only way she was able to see her-

“Ariadne!”

Her younger, hunchbacked brother had just turned the nearest corner. She broke into a grin, dropping the basket she’d been holding to run the extra couple of feet and wrap him in a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry it took me so long to get out of the palace this time!” she said, as her fingers gripped into the rough material of his tunic. “Can you ever forgive me, Asterion?”

“Ariadne, it’s fine…”

“No, it’s not fine!” Ariadne said adamantly. She stepped back, clenching her fists as she glared at the walls that surrounded them. “One of these days, I swear I’m going to get you out of here.”

“You know that’s impossible,” her brother said glumly.

“Why?” she said with a frown. “Why is it so impossible? I know the labyrinth by heart. Father only has guards posted at the official entrance. If you just came with me over one of the outer walls…”

“And then what, Ariadne? I don’t exactly blend into a crowd,” he said, gesturing at, well, all of him. “We’d have to get off the island. Who would take us?”

“I don’t know. Someone. We’d find someone.”

Even as she said it though, she wasn’t confident in the slightest. As the sole princess of Crete, she commanded a decent amount of power and respect… but it paled in comparison to the utter dominion her father had over his subjects.

Fourteen years ago their mother had died in childbirth. Had died giving birth to a monster, as her father was often quick to phrase it. The labyrinth had been her brother’s first gift, the plans sketched up before her mother’s funeral rites had even finished. Even with their chief inventor, Master Daedalus, forced to the helm, it’d taken seven years to both fully design and construct the structure. Seven years to engineer an impossible maze.

Ariadne had managed to solve the unsolvable in a mere four months.

She’d had a duty to her younger brother after all. While the labyrinth was being built, her father had ordered that her younger brother be segregated from his other two siblings, raised in a separate wing under close guard. Unfortunately, Ariadne had always possessed “an unhealthy level of curiosity” as one maid had put it, sticking her nose in places she’d been specifically informed it did not belong.

In those seven years, Ariadne became quite adept at sneaking in through windows and hiding behind tapestries. Then the labyrinth had actually been completed, and Asterion had been simply tossed inside like an unwanted, moth-eaten rug. Tossed into the most elaborate prison the world had ever seen. Forever.

Well. Not forever. Ariadne was determined to help him escape.

Somehow.

“I got you some of your favorites,” Ariadne said, picking up her basket from where she’d dropped it in her excitement.

She pulled back the cloth cover to reveal some sweetened bread rolls and a jar of honey. Her brother’s face lit up, and Ariadne smiled as she let him lead her back to his makeshift home in the center of the labyrinth.

“Official” food and supplies were brought in once a week by Master Daedalus himself. If there was one thing that puzzled Ariadne about her father, it was that. He hated his son enough to build the labyrinth, but not enough to outright kill him. On particularly bleak days, Ariadne sometimes wondered whether everything would be easier if her father _had_ killed Asterion as an infant. Then she’d immediately hate herself for thinking it.

As the two siblings walked Ariadne chattered to her brother about current happenings in the outside world. She also hated herself for that, talking so glibly about the everyday things that her brother never got to experience… never even got to see… but she supposed it was better than telling him nothing.

There was silly stuff, like the argument the fisherman’s wife had gotten into with one of the farmers, but there was also more serious news.

“Athens has officially surrendered,” Ariadne said as she took a seat on a cushion in her brother’s makeshift home. It consisted mostly of stray blankets and cushions with a tarp overheard to keep out the worst of the elements. As always, she tried to stay focused on the joy of seeing Asterion and ignore the horror of his living conditions.

“What?” her brother said. “Already?”

“After Aixone fell, it was only a matter of time.”

“I guess you’re right. Still…” Her brother looked at his honeyed roll in careful thought. “I wonder how the negotiations will go…”

Ariadne didn’t say anything in response. They both knew the negotiations would not end well.

Athens and Crete had been at war for years. Her eldest brother, Androgeos, had been slain in battle several years ago. He’d been both the favored son and the crown prince of Crete, and their father was not a man known for his forgiveness…

The two soon moved the conversation back onto more pleasant topics. Ariadne lost track of time, only noticing when the sun starting to set. She needed to get back to the palace, even though she still had so many things left to say.

“I just wish there was something I could do to see you more often,” Ariadne said as she gathered her basket.

Her brother tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Ariadne, you do the best you can,” he said.

“My best isn’t good enough!” Ariadne yelled.

She still prayed to the gods constantly, but these days it seemed like none of them were listening.

“You should get going before it gets too dark,” her brother said.

Ariadne reluctantly agreed and let Asterion accompany her back to the outer wall she’d crossed over. She kissed her brother lightly on his cheek, and then he hoisted her up by the foot so she could grab the top of the wall.

There was no one in visible sight, so Ariadne lingered on the top of the labyrinth wall for a moment, taking in the giant expanse of twisting white marble, the sun casting its initial twilight shadows as it set beneath the horizon. Her father’s palace loomed in the distance over it all… and then she dropped to the other side.

* * *

Ariadne waited until the kitchen maid left and then slipped into one of the palace’s main pantries. She plucked random treats from the shelves to stuff into her basket before silently retreating. The guards switched shifts around noon; Ariadne took advantage of that to sneak out the southwest wing. She avoided further detection by cutting through the stables.

It was a familiar route, but still one laded with servants that could catch her if she wasn’t careful.

Her heart only stopped pounding once she was on the winding farm road that led to her usual crossing spot into the labyrinth. There was a olive tree there whose branches leant out _ever_ so slightly across the wall.

As she rounded the bend that would bring the tree into view, Ariadne froze.

The tree was gone. Only a pathetic stump showed that something had ever grown there.

Ariadne jumped as a crash sounded out from somewhere deep within the labyrinth. Low booms and sharp banging noises followed.

Her heart raced. She needed to get off the open path and hide. Sprinting to a clump of nearby bushes, she quickly ducked behind them. Once she was sure that no one was around and had seen her, she peered out through the leaves, half-expecting an army or something equally ridiculous to march by.

The noise continued, but nothing else seemed to be happening. On the outside of the labyrinth, at least.

Unease swirled in her gut.

Her father had something to do with this. She just knew it.

* * *

 “What?!”

“You heard me perfectly well, Ariadne.”

“Yes, but…” Ariadne stumbled for words as she walked alongside her father in one of the palace’s many gardens. “ _Why?_ ”

“You know exactly why. That creature is a monster. Too long I’ve allowed him to freely…”

“That monster is your son!” Ariadne said.

“He’s no son of mine!” her father spat back.

He towered over her in a red-faced rage, veins pulsing. Ariadne shrank backwards in instinctive terror.

When it was clear that she was not going to continue challenging him, her father’s face mellowed into its original color. He resumed his walk and signaled for her to follow. Ariadne hated how she automatically obeyed.

“His legend has spread,” her father said as they passed by one of the fountains of Poseidon.

Ariadne stared at him in confusion, taking a moment to realize that he was talking about Asterion and not the sea god.

“On the mainland,” he continued. “They’ve started to tell stories of the labyrinth. Of the half-man, half-beast contained within.”

“He’s not a-“

The quick flash of anger in her father’s eyes made her swallow the rest of her sentence. Ariadne fell back into obedient silence.

“We worked out the terms of surrender with Athens,” he said. “They’re sending tributes. Sacrifices. To honor Androgeos.”

Ariadne’s brows furrowed in consternation at the mention of her dead brother. “How does their death honor him?” she finally asked.

There was a heavy sigh from her father. He turned to face Ariadne and rested his hands firmly on her shoulders.

“One day, my dear,” he said. “You will understand.”

Ariadne bit back the thousand responses that battled wildly in her mind. She kept her face clear and nodded.

* * *

She could hear the screams from her bedroom window. All of Crete could.

The first batch of sacrifices had finally arrived. They’d been thrown into the palace dungeons. Every day the sun would rise, and one would be picked out at random to be pushed into the modified labyrinth.

They rarely lasted long enough to see the following night.

Traps. Her father had commanded Master Daedalus and the rest of his chief inventors to build a countless number of deadly traps. They’d installed them over the past several months. Ariadne had snuck out, spying from nearby hedges as the workers carried in shovels, metal spikes, ropes, wooden beams punctured with nails, arrows…

Not content with the existing horror he’d unleashed upon the world, her father had taken it upon himself to create a maze of pure death.

Ariadne had no idea if her brother was still even alive. As far as she’d been able to discover, the workers had installed the traps by sections, using long, winding balls of string and Daedalus’s limited guidance to navigate. Once a section was completed, they never set foot it in again. To do so otherwise was to intentionally seek a one-way journey to Hades.

That meant there was no one was bringing her brother food anymore.

In a way, Ariadne almost hoped her brother was dead. At least then his suffering would be over. He could drink from the waters of the Lethe and start over anew.

The screams ended, the latest Athenean sacrifice finally succumbing to her wounds.

Ariadne curled up in her bed and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

 Something light but sharp was poking at the side of her face.

Ariadne reached out groggily to swat it away. There was a soft flutter of wings and then an angry cheeping in response.

She groaned. A bird had managed to find its way into her bedroom again. The curtains kept most of them out, but every so often one managed to slip through. She was about to call for a servant to remove it for her when she realized that the ground was cool and damp beneath her. Moist grass tickled the underside of her nose.

Ariadne jolted awake. She looked around in bewilderment.

She was lying near the center of a peaceful forest clearing. Sunlight fell around her in patches. The trees were tall and twisting and ancient, far older than any of the trees on Crete. A strange patch of sand rested in the rest of the grass near her. Ariadne twisted her nose at it briefly and then let her gaze travel on.

In the exact center of the clearing, a perfectly circular pool of water was carved into the ground. No wind disturbed its surface; no fish disturbed its depths. As she leaned over to peer down into it, Ariadne found that she couldn’t make out a bottom. She felt her stomach unsettling and quickly looked away.

A cloying scent hung in the air. She tried to place it. Hyacinth? Poppies?

“Who are you?”

Ariadne jumped at the voice.

She turned to see a young man leaning against a distant tree. His arms were crossed, his posture tense as if he’d flee at any moment. He wore white robes that were cut different from all the tunics she’d ever seen in her lifetime; the edges were embroidered with strange symbols in golden thread. Willowy and tall, his cheekbones were sharp and defined. His skin was dark like the sailors that sometimes passed through from the southeast, but his hair was as pale as beach sand and his hair floated in wisps like the ocean breeze. As he stared at her with wide inquisitive eyes, he strangely reminded her of some sort of other-worldly owl.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know. Where’s ‘here’?”

He frowned.

“You’ve been crying,” he said plainly.

Ariadne automatically reached up to scrub at her eyes.

“I’m just useless. That’s all,” she muttered, picking herself off the ground. “Useless Ariadne who’s only good for smiling and nodding and not doing anything that actually matters at all.” She paused to glance around the clearing again. “What is this place?”

 “Just a place,” the man said. “The same as any other. But only I should ever be here.”

“Oh, is it dangerous?”

Ariadne tried to make out any sort of threat, but all she could see were trees. Columns and columns of trees.

“Not that I know of,” the man said.

“Oh…” She bit her lip. “Do you want me to go?”

“No!”

The word came out rushed and desperate, his arms unfolding as he took a small unconscious step towards her.

“That is,” he said with a small cough. “I don’t get many visitors.” His voice turned bitter. “I… don’t get _any_ visitors.”

Ariadne narrowed her eyes.

“Who are you?”

“You mean I didn’t introduce myself? How terrible,” the man said. He unfolded his arms and bowed to Ariadne in a single fluid movement. “I am the Dreamer.”

Ariadne blinked. “Morpheus?” she asked in clarification.

“The Dreamer,” he repeated simply.

“Then does that mean…” Ariadne tried to remember how she’d actually gotten to this place. She’d been in her bed, trying to go to sleep. “Am I dreaming right now?”

“Perhaps. It does seem the most logical of explanations.”

The Dreamer waved his hand and a _kline_ appeared before him. He took a seat and gestured for Ariadne to do the same. She hesitated slightly, but then sat down next to him. It was best to do whatever the gods asked of one.

“You look hungry,” he said.

Ariadne jumped. A plate laden with exotic fruits was suddenly in his hands.

“Umm… a little I guess.” She took one to be polite, a pink-ish circular thing with soft fuzz coating its outside.

The Dreamer took a strange brown one for himself. As she watched him bite into its flesh and reveal bright green beneath, Ariadne realized the plate had vanished without her realizing it. Just another power the gods had at their disposal, but it still unsettled her. Also, for that matter…

Wherever she was, it wasn’t Mount Olympus. There didn’t seem to be any structures or objects other than the bench she was sitting on. Just trees, trees, and more trees. And the pool and the patch of sand.

Then again, her new companion had the ability to make things appear and disappear at will. For all she knew, the forest could’ve been one giant illusion.

“Something’s been troubling you. I’d like to hear it,” she suddenly heard him say.

Ariadne blinked.

“Oh, well… It’s nothing really,” she said, not wanting to bother a god with her problems. If what she’d heard was true, the beings often only made situations worse.

“Please,” the Dreamer said. “Perhaps it is the reason you’ve come to me.”

Ariadne bit into her own fruit to stall for time as she thought. Her eyes widened briefly at the unexpected intensity of the sweetness. Even if this was a dream, the taste was just as strong as in reality.

She could refuse to tell the Dreamer anything. It was definitely an option, especially since she didn’t know how much she trusted the strange man yet, but doing so would probably only make him angry, and then things would be worse for sure. She swallowed and cleared her throat.

“I have a brother,” she started. Ariadne wasn’t sure how omnipotent the Dreamer was and how much he actually knew, so she figured she’d start from the beginning. “He was born different.”

“Different?”

“Deformed,” Ariadne said shortly. She took a deep, shaky breath. “My mother died giving birth to him… I think Father blames him for that too. That’s why he put him in the labyrinth.”

“The what?”

“The labyrinth,” Ariadne said matter-of-factly. “It’s a colossal maze my father had built just for him. Marble walls as tall as your trees here and stretching out over acres and acres… It just is.”

“Your father imprisoned his own son in a giant maze?” the Dreamer asked. “And everyone just let him?”

Ariadne looked down at the half-eaten fruit in her hands. “He’s the king,” was all she was able to say. She glanced at the Dreamer. “You’re a god though. Don’t you know _any_ of this?”

“That’s… I’m not…” The Dreamer’s lips twisted. “It’s slightly more complicated than that.”

Ariadne waited for him to say more, but apparently that was all the explanation she was going to get.

Gods.

“I guess it wouldn’t be so bad…” Ariadne said. “Well, it wasn’t so bad up until recently.”

“Why?”

Ariadne smiled.

“Even though it was supposed to be impossible to solve,” she said, “I practically grew up with the labyrinth. I knew its every turn. I still do. But…”

“But…“ the Dreamer pressed.

Ariadne sighed. “It wasn’t enough for my father,” she said. “Or he figured it was a waste not to use it for other things. I honestly don’t know what he thought.” She paused as the various screams of the past week echoed inside her head. “Whatever it was, he hadtraps installed. Spiked pits, hidden trip wires… It’s his way for revenge against… no, you wouldn’t care about that. It’s just his newest form of execution because I suppose the others weren’t satisfying enough. Because of that though, the labyrinth’s too dangerous for me now. If I set foot in it, I’ll be killed.” Ariadne’s voice hitched and tears started welling in her eyes. “I don’t even know if my brother’s still alive. He’s probably sitting at the bottom of some pit, and I’m just sitting here doing absolutely nothing!”

Ariadne burst into tears again, her sniffles quickly morphing into ugly sobs. She turned away from the Dreamer, not wanting someone so powerful to see her so weak. She flinched as she briefly felt his hand touch her back. He quickly drew it away.

“I… I might be able to help you,” she heard him say. “Or rather a messenger of mine can.”

Ariadne stared at the Dreamer in shock. He stared back. At this proximity she could make out each individual eyelash as they curled over his mismatched eyes.

They continued to talk for hours until night had fallen and the stars emerged.

* * *

The morning came, dreary and grey. Both the forest and the mysterious Dreamer were gone. Ariadne sat huddled in her bed, alone once more.

She ate breakfast in one of the west sitting rooms. Well, “ate” probably wasn’t the most accurate word. Ariadne picked at the food on her plate, moving pieces around from edge to edge but never really putting any in her mouth. She just didn’t have the stomach for it.

One of her maids stayed with her for awhile, gossiping about the executions being put on hold. Apparently her father wanted to drag things out for as long as possible. He was burning through the sacrificial victims too fast. Only a handful of the fourteen Atheneans remained.

But even though there weren’t any screams today, Ariadne knew it was only a matter of time until they resumed.

After her servant left, Ariadne sat by the window, staring out at the unchanging scenery. She was eating approximately one grape every five minutes and debating whether or not to toss the whole plate over the sill when a rather large and shaggy dog wandered across the outside path. It trotted calmly over until it reached the center of her window’s view, and then sat down facing straight at her.

Ariadne froze with a grape halfway to her mouth.

She stared at the dog. It stared at her.

It wasn’t moving.

Was this what the Dreamer had meant by a messenger?

Glancing around to make sure that no servants were lingering by the doorway to the hall, Ariadne slowly set her plate down. She hoisted herself up into the windowsill and then dropped several feet silently onto the grass below.

The dog remained sitting in the center of the path, waiting for her.

As she approached, it finally leapt forward. It bounded down the path for a couple feet and then stopped. It looked back at her, panting, as if to say, “Hey! Hurry it up!”

Ariadne glanced back towards the palace to make sure no one was watching and then followed. She kept her eyes on the lookout for her father’s guards but, for once, she didn’t run across a single one.

The dog led her to a remote, southern section of the labyrinth walls. Several large, thick vines were growing up its side. Ariadne frowned.

“What am I supposed to do?” she told the dog. “Getting _into_ the labyrinth was never the problem. It’s the traps on the other side that I’m worried about.”

The dog merely cocked its head at her in response.

“Alright, alright,” she said. “I asked for help. I guess I have no choice but to trust you.”

It was a bit different, climbing up the vines instead of her old olive tree. It took Ariadne a couple tries to get the hang of it, but soon enough she was making vertical progress. She lingered ever so slightly when she reached the top, her heart beating rapidly at the thought of the traps below, and then dropped down into the inner passageways of the labyrinth. She stayed close to the edge of the wall where she’d dropped, too scared to take any further steps. 

Warm fur brushed up against her legs. Ariadne looked down to see the dog leaning against her, reaching its head up to get petted.

“I’m not going try to ask how you got over,” she said with a frown.

The dog didn’t seem to care. Now that it apparently had Ariadne’s attention again, it dashed off.

Ariadne was apprehensive to follow. She eventually, nervously, assured herself that - if a magical spiritual messenger animal had managed to lead her this far, it probably wouldn’t let her wander off the wrong way and get impaled on a hidden spear. 

The dog led her through sections of the labyrinth unfamiliar to her. It weaved back and forth across the ground, and Ariadne tried to follow as closely in its footsteps as possible. Every so often, Ariadne glanced at the walls and saw minute signs of tampering: discolorations, places where the stones didn’t _quite_ align as perfectly anymore… Things that would’ve been completely invisible to a newcomer. She shivered.

They turned the corner and Ariadne suddenly found herself in her younger brother’s “room.” It was empty.

Ariadne turned to the dog.

“Where is he?” she demanded. Her mind raced with the worst possible scenarios.

The dog merely trotted over to a corner and began chewing on some discarded chicken bones. Ariadne nearly cursed in exasperation.

She didn’t have to worry for too long. After a few minutes her brother wandered casually in.

“Asterion!” Ariadne cried out, nearly knocking her brother off his feet as she crashed into him with a smothering hug.

“Ariadne- What? How?”

Already Ariadne was pushing back the overgrown locks from his forehead and gazing into his eyes. Her brother was alive.

He was _alive_.

“I can’t believe you’re alright!” she said. She pulled him into another hug, running her fingers across the back part of his head. “How have you been getting food? I thought the guards stopped delivering it months ago.”

“They did,” her brother said. “But Master Daedalus devised a new way of sending packages through the air.”

Ariadne glanced up at the sky, half-expecting to see one of the packages floating above her. Maybe they were tied somehow to birds? Ariadne had a hard time imagining it, but at the same time she _had_ just been led here by a dog. It was still in the corner where she’d left it and was now licking itself. And doing so rather ungracefully.

“But what about you Ariadne?” Asterion was saying. “How did you get past all the traps? I haven’t been able to leave the inner five rings since they built them.”

Rage bubbled within her at the thought of the traps and her father and just how sick and twisted it all was. He’d made a prison for his son and then made it even smaller. And then the screams. Asterion had to have been hearing them as well… louder since he was actually _in_ the labyrinth when…

No. She wouldn’t think of it. Not right now.

“That thing,” she said, pointing at the dog.

Asterion looked at the dog and then back to her in confusion.

“What thing?” he asked.

“That _dog_ ,” Ariadne said. “Obviously. Can’t you see-”

Ariadne paused. The dog had vanished. She glanced around her brother’s room; it was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it’d ducked away through one of the side exits? No… she would have noticed…

“Am I missing something?” Asterion asked.

Ariadne pushed away thoughts of the dog and smiled openly, her first genuine smile in months and months. She sat down in a large pile of cushions against one of the walls.

“Oh,” she said. “You won’t even begin to believe.”

* * *

She woke up in the forest again. Or rather her sleeping self did. In the back of her mind, Ariadne could vaguely feel her real body still slumbering in her bed. The Dreamer was sitting next to the edge of the circular pool as she approached.

“I can’t even begin to make it up to you,” Ariadne began hesitantly. “But… thank you.”

The Dreamer was silent for several moments before he spoke.

“It was my pleasure,” he said softly.

Ariadne paused, and then sat next to him on the cool grass. They stayed there, listening to nothing but the rustle of leaves of the trees above them. It was quiet. Soothing. In the clearing, unlike every other place she’d known so far, her soul felt at peace. There was a part of her that belonged here.

A low woof came from her left.

The dog was back.

“And thank you to you as well,” Ariadne said as it bounded over, tongue wagging. As she began to pet it, it instantly crumpled over to give her the best access to its belly. “What is he, by the way?”

“Him?” the Dreamer said, glancing at the dog with only mild interest. “Just a small creation.”

“You _made_ him?!”

“In a way… that is, I can shift life between vessels,” he said. “Depending on the precise method of transfer, they can gain certain abilities of their own. He, in particular, is somewhat skilled at connecting minds.”

“What?”

“He can connect your conscious mind to… what did you call him again? Oh, yes,” the Dreamer said. “Master Daedalus’ unconscious one. I figured the old man would be the one with the knowledge to get you through the maze. But then, the dog is - in truth - merely an illusion, a way for your mind to process information that it knows doesn’t truly belong to it.”

“Oh,” Ariadne said. Well, that explained how the dog had vanished when Asterion arrived. “So it’s not really with me?”

“No.”

“Can it be?”

The Dreamer opened his mouth and hesitated, possibly thinking of some convoluted technical, and then he said simply, “No.”

Ariadne frowned.

“Does that mean you can’t either?” she asked. She blushed as his eyebrows raised. “Not that I meant to pry.”

“No. It’s fine.” The Dreamer went back to gazing at the water “And you are correct. I cannot.”

“Mmm…” Ariadne said noncommittally. She looked around as she continued to absentmindedly pet the dog. “So is it just the forest here? Or are there other things?”

“Do you wish to explore? You are free to wander.”

“Oh, no! I was just thinking about you!”

The Dreamer looked honestly confused at that. “Me?”

“Yes. You,” Ariadne said. “I mean, since you’re stuck here, I was hoping there was more than just the forest. It seems like it’d get awfully lonely… especially with no one to visit…”

Her mind wandered back to thoughts of Asterion. Even though she did her best to visit her brother when she could during the day, he’d spent every single night since he was seven years old alone.

The Dreamer blinked. “There are other things,” he said at last. “But thank you for your concern.”

“It’s nothing,” she said. She snorted. “Concern does nothing.”

They sat in silence a bit longer. Ariadne picked random blades of grass from the ground.

“It’s very peaceful here,” she eventually said.

“Hmm. I suppose it is.”

“So what _do_ you do?” Ariadne asked. “I mean, when I’m not here.”

The Dreamer looked up at the canopy of leaves. “Listen to dreams mostly.”

There was something about his completely casual tone that made Ariadne feel like it was a perfectly normal thing to say.

“Just good dreams?” Ariadne found herself asking. “Or the nightmares too?”

“Both. And sometimes they start off as one and end as the other.”

“That sounds terrible,” Ariadne said.

The Dreamer chuckled. “Sometimes. But even the worst dreams have their moments. Decent stories too. Although they don’t always make sense.”

Ariadne brightened up at that. “Oh, I love stories! Which ones are your favorites? I always loved the tales of Promethe- Oh…” Ariadne blushed. “Though I suppose you wouldn’t like those very much.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because… because he stole from you.”

“From me?”

“Well… Zeus and the others.”

“I’m not an Olympian,” the Dreamer said with a smile. “And I’d like to hear you tell it.”

“Tell what? The tales of Prometheus?” Ariadne’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I’m a terrible storyteller. You wouldn’t want to hear my version.”

“You said you didn’t know how to repay me. Well, this is how. I want to hear a story.”

Ariadne bit her lip. How did she get roped into telling a god a tale about the gods? Still, if it was the only thing he was asking for in repayment…

Ariadne leaned back onto the grass, ignoring the dog as it nudged her to continue petting him. The Dreamer stayed sitting nearby, his arms resting on his knees.

“Once upon a time…” Ariadne began.


	7. The Tale of Ariadne: Part Two

“Do you believe in a second life after death?”

“Hmm?”

Ariadne glanced up from where she’d been lying on the crisp grass, rubbing the dog’s belly with both hands as he panted in joy beneath them. The Dreamer was sitting several feet away on a marble bench staring at her calmly, as he sometimes did, with both his hands clasped gently in his lap.

“You mean Hades?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” the Dreamer replied. “Reincarnation is the word some cultures have for it. The ability for a spirit to die and be born again. To return to the world as a living, breathing mortal.”

Ariadne frowned, and then slowly pushed herself up. This seemed to be a conversation that required more than just casual attention. The dog pawed at her side, obviously displeased at the distraction from himself, but Ariadne ignored him. 

“Maybe, I suppose,” Ariadne said. She tilted her head back, taking in all the clouds that slowly drifted past her vision. “There are some who believe the dead are given a choice. To drink from either the Lethe or Mnemosyne. If they choose the former, they are born again with new flesh and new memories.”

It was a somewhat debated subject in the temples, even among a kingdom as insulated as hers. Different priests offered up different tales. Some argued it vehemently, saying it contradicted the gods’ promise of eternal peace in the Elysian fields. Others shunned mere doubt of it as blasphemy.

“And are you one of the believers?” he said.

She lifted an eyebrow.

“Why are you suddenly asking?”

The Dreamer’s face shifted ever so slightly, the flicker of some unknown emotion fleeting across it. It looked for a moment as if he was about to answer her question, but then he simply shrugged.

“No particular reason,” he said.

Instead of speaking further or turning his head, the Dreamer continued to stare at her.

Ariadne felt her face warming at the all-too-personal intensity of it. She quickly switched her attention back to the dog to deflect the awkwardness. He barked, rolling back and forth in glee as she returned her hands to his belly. He stretched and his paws glanced slightly against the stone of the spring’s rim.

Or was it more of a basin now?

The object in question was still technically a pool of water, and it still existed in the same location and still held the same amount of water. Other than that though, it now looked like something more at home among her father’s courtyards than in a wild forest. Somewhat disturbingly, Ariadne hadn’t noticed the change until it’d already happened and had felt like it’d been that way forever.

The rest of the clearing too…

The path of sand had finally disappeared. Several small paths now led from the basin into the surrounding forest. The routes were marked with elaborate carved archways, displaying various stories of the gods. Ariadne noted that most came from the stories she’d personally told the Dreamer.

And then there was the forest itself. The trees in the distance were still massive, casting the land beneath them in shadows, but the ones around the edges of the clearing had become… tame for lack of a better word. They were smaller, and their branches had been trimmed into rather eye-pleasing patterns.

Ariadne had no idea what was causing the changes or if they were route, and she had a feeling if she asked the Dreamer she wouldn’t get a straight answer.

A slobbery wetness dragged itself against her palm, and Ariadne jumped. She’d stopped petting the dog. Truly a criminal offense.

In the end, perhaps she’d do best to leave godly matters to the gods and enjoy the simple here and now.

* * *

Ariadne paused, her hand around a loaf of bread intended for Asterion later. The kitchen was empty, but she could hear voices nearby. She quickly dropped the loaf in her basket and ducked down a side corridor.

She cursed under her breath as she heard them continue to grow closer.

If they caught her lifting from the kitchens again… Ariadne was sure she’d be able to come up with some excuse easy enough, but her father would be suspicious all the same. The last thing she needed was more “guardians” posted around the palace watching her every move.

Ariadne jogged down the corridor, feeling more frustrated with every passing second. There wasn’t a single room to sneak into. The corridor just went on and on with the occasional turn and junction.

Just as Ariadne was feeling incredibly lost and losing hope, a window appeared on her left just big enough to squeeze through. With a quick glance outside to check that it was clear of people, she clambered up on the sill and jumped, landing lightly on the moist ground below.

With a quick survey of the surrounding walls, Ariadne frowned. Despite spending her entire life in her father’s palace, its massive size meant there were still entire wings unfamiliar to her. As far as she could tell, she was somewhere along its north-eastern side. If she made her way to the right, she would eventually hit the stables.

Safe territory.

Her direction decided, she stuck close to the palace wall and the surrounding bushes and began to crawl. They didn’t provide much cover, but it was better than nothing.

Ariadne was scurrying past a particularly barren part of the wall when a hand shot out from its base and wrapped around her ankle.

She almost screamed, the sound coming out as choked cry instead. She’d stopped herself, conflicted. If any guards came to save her, she’d only end up in different trouble.

The hand was attached to an arm that extended from a tiny opening at the base of the wall. She’d only seen such opening once or twice before while wandering with her older brother, Androgeos. They served as ventilation for the palace’s prisons.

The hand seemed intent on dragging her forward, but the opening was barely large enough for the hand itself let alone a full person. She was both struggling to break free and wondering what the hand hoped to achieve when a white and grey blur bounded past. Its teeth flashed bright in the noon second.

The dog had come to save…

It stopped a foot away from the hand and uselessly growled at it. Ariadne fought back a groan. What had the Dreamer said? That only she could see it? Why had it even bothered to show up?!

She was going to have to rescue herself.

Taking a deep breath, she drew back her free leg and began to kick at the hand, smashing the soft bits of skin between her heel and the ground. 

Someone from beyond the bars cried out in pain. The hand released Ariadne’s foot and withdrew.

The dog remained by her side, its teeth still bared.

“How much longer will you Minoans continue to torture us?!” a male voice suddenly yelled from the prison. “Kill us all and be done with it!”

Ariadne frowned.

Keeping herself at a safe distance, she knelt down and tried to peer into the prison. The opening was too small and the difference in light too big to see anything but pitch blackness.

“Who are you?”

“Oh, your people know well enough. Killing us for sport. Serenading us sleep each night with the dying screams of our brothers and sisters.”

Ariadne’s eyes widened.

“You’re one of the Athenian tributes!” she said, leaning closer.

There was a hollow laugh from the other side of the opening. “ _Tributes_. You make it sound so civilized.”

“That’s not fair,” Ariadne protested. “Not all of agree with what my fath- what the king is doing. Most of us hate it as much as you do!”

“Really? Then what are you doing about it?”

The man stepped closer, and his face drew level with the opening, letting Ariadne see him for the first time. She sucked in a sharp breath as her heart began to race.

The man had beautiful, piercing blue eyes set beneath a pair of dark lashes. His strong jaw jutted forward in proud defiance. Soft brown hair curled ever so slightly against his forehead. Ariadne had never seen anyone more handsome in her life.

“Anything?” the man said.

“Oh!” Ariadne said, her thoughts attempting to tumble back into coherence and failing miserably. “I… Umm… I…”

The man snorted. “Figures. We’ll die for sport like the animals you think we are.”

“No! I…”

The man himself aside, the question was incredibly frustrating because he was completely right. Innocent people were dying, her brother was imprisoned, and she _wasn’t_ doing anything. She continued to complain about being powerless when in reality she had the power of a _god_ behind her.

She had the power of a god, and she was squandering it.

“It’s time we found a way to end this,” Ariadne said.

“We?”

“That is…” Ariadne glanced at the dog. Surprisingly, his hackles were still raised. “Oh, you stop that,” she said, bopping the dog lightly on the nose. Belatedly, she realized that the man had just watched her bop the air. “It’s nothing,” she muttered. She turned back to the man, her cheeks flushing. “What is your name?”

He didn’t look impressed with either Ariadne’s new determination or her declaration of friendship. The dog kept bumping again her side, trying to reclaim her attention.

“Theseus,” he said, sullenly. “You?”

The Minoan princess ignored the urge to shove the dog away.

“Ariadne.”

* * *

It took forever to go to sleep that night, her body coursing with a volatile concoction of terror and excitement. The moment Ariadne felt the grass of the forest tickling her back, she sprang up, almost crashing into the Dreamer in her rush to reach him.

“You seem rather… excited tonight,” he said with a small quirk of his lips. “Did you see your brother again?”

“No, I got… That is, something else came up…” Ariadne twisted both of her hands in the folds of her _chiton_. She’d ran through it in her head a dozen times easily enough, but somehow it was much harder to actually ask out loud. “I… need to know something. Something important.”

She watched the Dreamer lift an eyebrow from the corner of her eye.

“Well?” he said. “Ask away.”

Ariadne took a deep breath.

“I… Would I still be able to see you if I left Crete?” she asked.

He blinked at her.

“Why are you suddenly asking?” he said blankly.

Ariadne coughed, keeping her eyes on the ground. Her hands tightened into fists. 

“I want to stop this bloodshed,” she said resolutely. “I want to save the Athenians. I want to save my brother. I want to run far _far_ away and never look back.”

The Dreamer was silent for a long time. Ariadne picked out a particular patch of grass and began to study the individual blades to keep her emotions anchored.

“Any particular reason this conviction comes now?”

“I… I met one of the remaining prisoners. He… well, _they_ ,” Ariadne corrected - while talking with Theseus, she’d learned there were three others still alive in the same cell, “reminded me that I can’t just sit by and do nothing while people I love get hurt.” She slowly lifted her head until their eyes met. “Will you help me?”

More silence.

This time the Dreamer was the one to break away. He wandered around the clearing until he came to a rest at the basin’s rim. Seated on the white stone, he trailed his fingers in the water, his eyes distant. Despite their close proximity, Ariadne felt like she was looking at him from the far side of a vast field.

“It seems you’ve already decided,” he said, not looking at her. “I take it you have a plan?”

* * *

The sun was just beginning dip below the horizon as Ariadne scurried past the walls of the palace. The dog followed close behind her, swift and yet… reluctant somehow. Ariadne assumed he still hadn’t forgiven Theseus for grabbing her leg that one time.

Tough. It’d have to get over it.

At last Ariadne approached the small opening of the prison and knelt in front of it.

“Theseus!” she whispered. Soon his face was a mere hand’s width away from hers. “My… That is, the king is going to resume throwing your people into the labyrinth soon.”

“What!” Theseus hissed. “I thought you said you were going to-“

“Ssh! I’m not done!” Ariadne glanced around to make sure she was still alone. The dog would’ve probably warned her before that happened, but she was still cautious. “When that happens,” she continued. “I need you to volunteer to be the first tribute.”

“What!? But-”

“I _said_ I’m not done! After you enter the labyrinth, my dog will show you the way to the center.”

“Your-? You want me to trust my life to a dog!?”

“He knows the labyrinth better than anyone. Certainly better than you.”

Theseus frowned.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “The center? But that’s where the monster is!”

Ariadne sighed with frustration.

“He’s _not_ a monster. That’s just a lie the king made up. To scare people… to make himself feel better… Take your pick,” Ariadne said glowering. “The king is the true monster.” She forced herself to take a deep breath. That wasn’t important right now. She had to get Theseus to trust her this if she wanted it to work. “The person at the center of the labyrinth is not a monster, but my little brother, Asterion. Once you meet up with him, the dog will show both of you the way back out.”

“Won’t there be guards or anything posted at the entrance?”

“They’ll be asleep. So will the guards currently standing right outside this room. When that happens, I’ll be here to let your friends out. We’ll meet at the docks. Together, there should be enough people to sail a ship off this island. Here, I’ve drawn a map.”

Ariadne unfolded a small piece of vellum and passed it to Theseus.

The man eyes’ quickly scanned it before staring back at Ariadne with mixture of shock and suspicion.

“Why are you doing all of this?” he asked. “What do you get out it?”

Ariadne stared Theseus straight in the eye.

“In exchange, Asterion and I are coming with you.”

* * *

 

All she had to do was slip some chamomile into several of the main drinking pots that the guards and a number of other servants filled their flasks from. Well, chamomile and a mixture of other things. After they fell asleep the Dreamer had promised he’d do his best to keep them that way.

That whole part seemed to be rolling along quite smoothly.

Ariadne stepped past two sleeping guards and unlocked the door to the Athenian prison. Together the small group made their way out of the palace. The full moon hung low over the sky, illuminating their path to the harbor. 

Ariadne stood on the dock as the others began to commandeer a boat. It’d be a little risky, sailing out of the rocky harbor at night, but it was the only way to escape undetected.

She shivered as a frisson of anticipation ran through her. 

Theseus _had_ to have reached the center by now. Even if the dog didn’t personally like Theseus, he’d do his best to guide the prince through the labyrinth. All she had to do was wait, have faith, and she and her brother would be tasting their first true breath of freedom.

Freedom.

Ariadne knew the literal definition of the word, but it’d always felt… fake. A happy lie taught to children who didn’t know any better. She tried to imagine the future. She and Asterion would be standing on the deck of a fishing boat bound for Athens… bound for the Greek mainland… bound for… anywhere.

If her heart didn’t stop pounding with excitement soon, it’d surely burst.

At last there was a flash a movement on the road that led to the docks. Ariadne dashed forward with glee. It was Theseus and he…

He…

He was alone.

“Where’s my brother?” she asked in nervous confusion. Her heart continued to pound, but now each beat hollowed out a portion of her chest.

“Ariadne, I… I couldn’t find him,” Theseus said, his voice dripping with regret. “I searched for as long as possible, but it’s a _labyrinth_. Yes, I thought of him, but I also had to think of everyone else. If the guards woke up before I got here…”

“They wouldn’t have woke up.”

“You don’t know that.” He sighed. “Come on, we need to get going.”

Theseus reached out towards Ariadne, but she darted backwards.

“What about the dog?”

“That thing? He started leading me towards the center, and then he just vanished. It’s a miracle that I managed to make it back to the beginning the way I did. Now, come _on_ ,” he said, reaching towards her again.

Ariadne frowned. Nothing was adding.

“But you just said you looked for my brother as long as possible,” she whispered. “How could you have done that without the dog?”

Again, his face melted into concern.

“Oh, Ariadne…” he said. He reached out again with both hands this time. Ariadne slapped them away. Theseus studied her almost disinterestedly and then shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.”

Something heavy hit the side of her head before she could stop it.

* * *

Ariadne groaned. Grass tickled her cheek while her head throbbed in agony. She clutched it as she sat up, the world spinning in a mixture of greens and browns. Slowly the colors began to separate themselves.

She was in the clearing again.

The Dreamer was sitting at the basin, his back to her. His fingers trailed back and forth as they made ripples in the water. The world was silent. Too silent. It was the silence of missing.

The silence of the dead.

Ariadne stared at the Dreamer’s back. Her world kept morphing, what had always made sense and what didn’t… the two swapped places, swapped back. The people in her life were dancing, running… Everything was rotating outwards, leaving her alone in the center as the ground crumbled into nothing beneath her.

“Where’s the dog?” she asked, her voice trembling.

The Dreamer didn’t answer her.

“What happened to my brother?”

Still nothing.

Silence clawed at her heart. Her mind was clouding, her thoughts erasing themselves, swirling together into incoherence… Ariadne fought to breathe, to clutch hold of some semblance of reality.

Was any of this real? Ever? The dog had been in her head. Perhaps the clearing had been too. A simple delusion. A naive fantasy created by a naive girl whose mind was too broken to accept the truth.

No.

Even if it’d been just to her, the dog had been real.

The dog had led her through the labyrinth, past the deadly traps her father had installed. The dog had tried to protect her, growling at Theseus when he-

Theseus…

Ariadne collapsed to the ground, hands clutching at the soft grass as her fingers dug into the damp soil.

Theseus had lied to her, but why?

_Why?_

“The dog is gone,” she finally heard the Dreamer say.

Ariadne looked up, shapes distorted through her tears. The Dreamer was still facing away from her, but his voice seemed to float unconnected through the clearing.

“It managed to connect him with Daedalus,” he continued. “However the connection snapped. I don’t know why. I could try to make you another, but it wouldn’t be the same one.”

Ariadne’s face twisted in confusion.

“And my brother?” she heard herself asking.

The resulting silence cracked her heart, leaving its contents to drip out until it was nothing more than a pitiful shell. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “Most likely dead.”

“No, that can’t…”

“Protest all you wish. It does not change reality.”

“What do _you_ know about reality!?” Ariadne screeched. “All you do is sit here and play with your stupid pool and waltz back and forth between your stupid trees and… and you don’t know _anything!_!!”

She ripped out a chunk of earth with her hands and threw it at him. It hit his white robes with a dull thunk, leaving a satisfying brown stain.

And still he didn’t look at her.

“You are correct. I know nothing,” he said to the water. “Your actual body is still with Prince Theseus. His dreams were veiled this entire time. I couldn’t read his true intentions. If I’d been able to see…” His hands clenched. “I’ve failed to protect you.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?!” Ariadne shouted. “I don’t care about me! I care about my brother! I care about-”

Ariadne froze as a sob wrenched its way through her throat.

“My brother is dead, and it’s all because I _trusted_ him! I trusted _you_!”

“I…”

“You say you’re a god, but what good are you? Really?” Ariadne dug her nails into the sides of her scalp. “What’s the use of existing here when none of this is real?!”

The Dreamer’s spine twisted slowly, like the ever-winding spindle of the Fates. The skin around his eyes was sunken and dark. She’d always known the man was centuries old, perhaps millennia, but this was the first time his face had shown it.

“…Serra,” he breathed.

She stared at him, wary. A soft prickling made its way across her skin. The back of her throat felt dry. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion but also a little bit of hurt. After all their time together, he was mistaking her for a stranger. And why did he look so awestruck?

“My name,” she said defensively, “is Ariadne.”

And then she woke up.

* * *

Her face was soaked, her hair drenched. Ariadne gasped for air as water dripped slowly off her nose. A rough rope had been tied around her wrists, scratching as it dug into sensitive skin. Harsh sunlight beat down, and she squinted her eyes in pain. She could smell the sea… could hear the nearby cry of gulls…

“Is the princess awake at last?” drawled a familiar voice.

Ariadne focused on the blurred shape in front of her. It gradually solidified into Theseus. His arms were crossed as he stared impassively at her, his mouth set in a grim line. The two of them were at the tree line of a large, deserted beach that stretched as far as her eye could see in either direction. The stolen fishing boat lay anchored a short distance off the coast.

She growled, lunging at him, but was yanked back. She struggled again in vain and then twisted her head to see what was holding her. Her arms had been bound behind her to the trunk of a large tree.

Theseus smirked as Ariadne slowly realized the helplessness of her situation.

“Scream all you want,” he said. “No one will hear you after we leave.”

“Theseus…” Ariadne whispered, her voice hoarse with thirst. “…why?”

“Why? _Why?_ The daughter of the King Minos asks why. Do you have any idea the extent of the tortures he unleashed upon my city? Upon my people?”

“But… I helped you.”

“You helped yourself,” he said. “Do you know how many of us they dragged from our homes? How many of us were murdered in your father’s twisted maze? You never thought once about helping us before I grabbed your leg, and even afterwards you thought only of yourself. Of what you could gain from us.”

“But-“

“You betrayed your people. Why should I trust anything about you?”

Ariadne felt eyes watering, but fought her tears down as best as possible. “That’s not true,” she bit out.

“Oh, save your tears for the gods.”

The gods…

Ariadne sniffed, an attempt to clear both her nose and her emotions.

“What did you do to my brother?” she asked. “To my dog?”

“The monster and the mongrel? It was an odd beast, I’ll give it that. I wasn’t lying when I said it vanished,” Theseus said. “Hurt my head whenever I looked at it. What was it? Some sort of product of sorcery?”

“And my brother?”

“You gave me a guide and it vanished,” he said. “What was I supposed to do? Not that I ever _planned_ on going that far in to begin with…”

Ariadne slowly pieced together his words. The Dreamer said himself that he hadn’t known her brother’s fate, which meant…

Ariadne’s heart leapt.

“You mean my brother’s alive?!” she asked.

Theseus shrugged. “Perhaps. It’s not as though it matters to me. Or to you for that matter. Behold,” he said, sweeping his hand out across the narrow strip of sand. “Your final kingdom in this life.” Theseus held up a small coin and laid it at her feet. “For the passage over.”

“No!” Ariadne shouted as he began to make his way back to his ship. “Wait! Please, don’t do this! Theseus! _Theseus!_ ”

Her knees gave out and she collapsed, arms dragging down against the bark. She pulled again with all her strength, but the ropes held firm.

“Theseus!”

The worst part, the very worst part that made her sick to her stomach, was when he glanced back one last time. He looked at her, and a small portion of her stupid, _stupid_ heart still involuntarily fluttered at the sight of his triumphant, dazzling smile.


	8. The Tale of Ariadne: Part Three

Thirst clawed at the back of her throat even in the clearing. The Dreamer hovered near her, his face unreadable. He silently offered her various fruit, sips of water in a bronze cup… anything to try and alleviate the pain. 

Ariadne winced as she gulped the liquid down. It briefly soothed the burning sensation, and then left it feeling drier than it’d been before. She began to cough.

The Dreamer instantly leaned in to comfort her. His fingers pressed against her back, gentle and sympathetic.

She shoved him away.

“How is this helping?!” Ariadne shouted. She ripped the cup from his hands and hurled it across the clearing. It clanged harshly against a stone bench. “My brother is still out there! He’s out there and he needs me and I’m stuck here! I’m stuck on that stupid island, _dying_!!”

Her voice caught on the last word, and she shuddered, biting back a sob. She buried her face in her hands.

Time in the clearing had always been strange. Back in Crete there’d been nights than had spun out into days and days while she’d slept. She’d come to accept it as one of those things.

Now, whatever lines existed between reality and this dream world seemed _completely_ non-existent. Ariadne swept back and forth between the two without warning and barely conscious of having even done so.

Her lips on the deserted island were burnt and cracked with sea salt. Her hair hung down in wet, matted clumps. It’d rained… had it been hours or days ago? She couldn’t remember. Her head pounded to think.

The rain should’ve been a relief, but the aftermath only made the air that much more scorching and intolerable. Ariadne slumped forward, the rope chaffing against her wrist. A wet stickiness trickled down them. The rope had finally rubbed away her outer layer of skin. It was getting harder and harder to separate one pain from the other.

She gazed blearily up at the sky, squinting at the circling gulls and drifting clouds. It looked like a child’s painting. A child’s daydream.

Another wave of dizziness crashed over her and she pitched forward, her face slamming against a soft layer of grass. Pain blossomed beneath her cheek.

Ariadne lay against the grass, her fingers curling around its blades, too exhausted to move.

* * *

Time continued to pass. Ariadne had no idea how much or in what amounts before she finally noticed that the Dreamer had vanished. He must have vanished awhile ago. The clearing was barren, hers the only life present.

It was a somewhat of a relief, really. The Dreamer had always felt older and wiser than her. Had always _been_ older and wiser and almost parental towards her at times in a way that made her squirm under her skin.

The events with Theseus had only widened that gap. Even time he looked at her, Ariadne felt him quietly judging her for making such a stupid mistake. For putting all of her trust in a complete stranger.

The Dreamer treated her like a child because she was one.

It was irritating too, the way he tenderly cared for her when nothing was going to make a difference. Ariadne hadn’t wanted to accept the truth at first, but gradually it had seeped in. For once, the Dreamer was just as powerless as she was.

She was going to die.

Somehow the thought didn’t make her sad.

Just empty.

Her whole life was one just cruel joke, extended from birth to death. Was this really what the gods had created her for? Did her entire fate truly boil down to a single footnote in someone else’s story?

Ariadne wondered what Theseus and the others would tell their people when they reached Athens. Would the prince speak of vanquishing the monstrous beast of the labyrinth with nought but his own bravery and strength? What about the subsequent escape? What about her? Would she be hero or villain? Would she even be mentioned?

Her strength evaporating with each breath, Ariadne stumbled to the basin, her legs giving out right at the edge. She knew its water did nothing, but her throat burned. Everything burned. Delirious, she reached out and managed to dip her fingers in the water.

She hung there like that, energy spent.

Finally she forced her hand to curl itself into a cup-shape and brought it up to her mouth. More water spilled and tricked down the sides of her mouth than went into it.

Ariadne gave up, collapsing back against the cool stone. Her eyelids were too heavy to keep open, and she felt herself drifting off… not back to the tortures of the deserted beach, but a new realm, cool and soothing and dark…

“Ariadne.”

She blinked back into awareness.

The Dreamer was kneeling directly in front her, his mouth set in an unreadable line. Both his hands were clasped around her own. He lifted them, bowing forward until his forehead was resting against them.

“I know what I have to do now,” he said. “I’m not going to let you die.”

Ariadne began to laugh. The sound quickly fractured into another coughing fit. As she smiled at him, she felt her lips crack, blistered by the days of exposure under the sun.

“It’s a bit inevitable now, don’t you think?” she said.

The Dreamer didn’t seem to appreciate her black humor. His mouth didn’t so much as twitch.

“I’ve thought about something you said once,” Ariadne continued, her eyes drifting back shut. “About a second life after this one. It’ll just be me and my brother… the dog too. We’ll go somewhere far, far anyway from any labyrinths. Just a nice, ordinary family in a nice, ordinary house… Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

““This _is_ your second life,” his voice said, “and I won’t let you start a third.”

Her eyes snapped open in confusion.

“What are you talking abou-“

The Dreamer cut her off with a kiss.

His lips were warm and soft, but desperate, as if he was the one dying of thirst. More than just his mouth, his whole body pressed against hers, insistent for contact. Ariadne was trapped by the basin’s edge, by him and the weight of his chest. He dropped her hands, migrating his to either side of her head to bury themselves in her matted, black curls.

She stared at him in shock. From the corner of her eyes, the clearing blazed. The trees and grass wavered, buckling against their natural shapes as they glowed an eery white.

Ariadne broke the kiss, pushing his shoulders back with a strength that surprised her. Her fingers clung to the fabric gathered there.

“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly. Her heart continued to pound.

“Just returning what was originally yours,” he replied calmly.

A non-answer. As always.

The Dreamer leaned forward to kiss her again, but she held him at bay.

“Who exactly are…”

Ariadne stared at him as her mouth rested ever so slightly open. The Dreamer stared back, his eyes a mix of piercing blue and fathomless black. His eyebrows raised high and sharp across his face as they always did, like a vigilant bird of prey. An owl perhaps…

An owl surrounded by hundred of scrolls scattered carelessly around the clearing. He sat by her pool’s edge, his face alight in fictional rapture as he read out loud to her. She remained in the water with her arms resting against the soft bank, occasionally breathing out a peaceful sigh.

“There was a house,” Ariadne said.

“What?”

“A house,” she repeated, the memories drifting back in tangled strands, “where the books were stored. You’d bring them… and read to me. Stories. So many beautiful stories”

The Dreamer leaned forward and gently rested his forehead against her own.

“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes as he smiled. “Yes, I did.”

Ariadne smiled back, a warm contentment sweeping lethargically over her. She began to move her hands towards his face, to ruffle his hair… and then froze. A stone dropped through her stomach.

The kiss. Physical contact. The transfer of power.

The world continued to blaze into a sea of whites and yellows and nothingness. It would take him with it.

“No!”

She fought to get away, but his hands moved from her hair to her shoulders and held firm.

“This is the only way, Serra,” he said resolutely. “I’m not watching you die again. I can’t.”

“You… idiot! This was never about-” Ariadne’s breath caught as she felt a familiar rush of power returning to her veins… draining from his. The Dreamer’s shoulders sagged and his head slumped. She grabbed hold of him as he fell and forced his head up to look at her. His eyes were quickly glazing over. Ariadne swallowed her rage, her panic, forced herself to speak coherently. “Listen to me! Every decision I’ve ever made, every single one, I did because I _wanted_ to. I never…”

Ariadne froze as the light suddenly broke through both of their hands, and he slipped immaterially through her fingers.

“Oh, don’t you dare!” she shouted, tears welling in her eyes. “Don’t you dare leave me alone like this! I will never-”

Her remaining words were lost as they were both ripped apart.

* * *

Ariadne groaned as she woke again.

Her thirst was gone. The pain was gone. When she pressed her lips against each other, she felt them soft and supple. The welts from the ropes had vanished from her wrists as well, leaving her skin pale and unblemished.

Once again she possessed the perfection of the gods.

The gods…

Ariadne shoved her hands against the ground and pushed herself up. She was in the restored clearing. The trees, the archways, the basin… everything had returned to the way it was before the transfer of power, save one.

“Dreamer?” she whispered to an empty forest even as she knew no one was there to respond.

But even that wasn’t right. _She_ was technically the Dreamer now, stealing his title just as she had his existence. He was… nameless. Nothing more than a memory that’d inevitably fade into the same nothingness.

And she…

She was trapped here. Alone.

Ariadne’s breath spiraled out of control. She wheezed, her lungs twisting. Logically, she knew it was impossible for her to die anymore. Her current choking was a mere product of her imagination. The thought only made her thoughts spin further into chaos.

She sunk forward, palms digging into the dew-sprinkled grass, and screamed.

The sound split the air, stone erupting from the ground. Wall after wall of white marble rose, towering over her and casting her new world in shadow. The walls split and converged, racing across the land, wrapping around her heart, the two now intrinsically one.

Ariadne stared at the soft grass beneath her hands. Her stomach turned, suddenly repulsed by it. She ripped it from the ground in chunks, revealing more marble below. She cleared herself a small, irregular patch, fell onto her back, and finally let herself cry.

She didn’t bawl. There were no more sobs left in her, only scant dregs of emotion that slowly trickled their way out.

With her back resting against the smooth marble, Ariadne gazed up at the clouds.

How many centuries awaited her with nothing but this? Nothing but herself during the day and snatches of dreams at night, always illogical and shifting. Before there’d been…

Ariadne frowned. Even now she was having a harder and harder time remembering “before.” The handful of memories she’d regained in the transfer were already re-fading.

The Dreamer’s original name… his original purpose was…

She mentally grasped at the words, fumbling, and then it too faded.

Ariadne shut her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep. Dreaming had made her happy once, she remembered that much. She’d just have to let it make her happy again. If the world was merciful, she’d be able to bounce back and forth between them and they’d give her a distraction for the next several hours and…

Ariadne swallowed.

Time. Even when it hadn’t moved that fast on Crete, she’d at least been able to measure it. She could carve it up into manageable chunks, waiting for better days.

Now it stretched out into eternity, losing all semblance of worth and meaning.

She bit her lip and decided to press forward anyway.

Ariadne slipped into the dream state soon enough. A featureless sea of humanity’s collective unconscious, she was beginning to let her mind drift whichever way the ethers chose to carry it when she felt a odd sort of tug. An anchor had been cast out somewhere in the distance, warping the sea around it like a maelstrom.

Curious, Ariadne shifted direction.

* * *

 

Ariadne stood on a hill overlooking a massive battlefield. A broad-shouldered man stood nearby, his profile towards her.

“Father?” she asked.

He turned and looked straight at her.

“Ariadne?”

Her eyes widened. She twisted as she searched the hill, certain that there had to be some sort of copy of herself that he was talking to instead. She was supposed to be an observer. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Ariadne!” her father cried. The breath was squeezed from her lungs as he clamped his arms around her. “You’ve come back to me!”

“Father, I…”

“Oh, Ariadne,” he murmured into her hair. “My child… My only child.”

Her gut churned with an all too familiar feeling. Ariadne pushed him away, eyes narrowing at the sight of his unassuming face.

“What about Androgeos?” she asked suspiciously.

“Passed away. Like your dear mother.”

“And Asterion?”

Her father’s face darkened. “How many times must we go over this?” he said, puffing up his chest. “You’d be better off if you forgot all about him.”

“No,” Ariadne said coldly. The courage she’d always lacked in life raced through her like fire. “No, I don’t think I shall.”

If she could use her new powers to find out what happened to Asterion… if she could convince her father or someone else to help him, then maybe… maybe all of this wouldn’t be so terrible after all.

Her father turned and stalked away. Ariadne silently followed him.

“Those Athenians,” he said. “We should have slaughtered them all on the spot.” For once, Ariadne found herself in agreement. “When they took you, I thought that it was the end of everything. That there was nothing I could… but, as they say, there is no shadow without some light.” He smiled at Ariadne. “The creature is dead.”

Ariadne froze. 

 “Slain, regrettably,” her father continued, “by one of _them_. Our people won’t stand such insult. We will rise again! We will-”

“Was he really slain by an Athenian?” Ariadne asked.

Her father waved his hand dismissively.

“The truth does not matter as long as that’s what they believe.”

“The Athenian’s didn’t kill him.”

Her father didn’t say anything, merely giving her a non-committal shrug.

“He was your son,” she whispered. Her hands curled slowly into fists.

Her father scoffed. “That monster was no son of-”

Ariadne flung him backwards with her mind. King Minos hit the ground and tumbled, his white robe staining red as plumes of rock dust showered around him. The rolling hills morphed into a harrowing cliff face, and her father skidded off, barely catching himself at the last moment. He dangled from the rock by his bare hands.

“You never cared about any of us,” Ariadne said, voice devoid of emotion. “Asterion was your monster, Androgeos was your trophy, and I was your pet. You say Theseus killed me, but he didn’t. It was you all along.”

“Ariadne, what are you talking about?! Help me up! Please!”

She studied her father’s desperation, his wild, frantic eyes.

Pathetic.

Her nose crinkled in disgust, and she ground her foot into the back of his left hand. Her father yelped in pain, slipping further as he clung to the rock with a single hand.

“Ariadne! Why are you doing this?!”

Her father was oblivious. Completely, hopelessly, infuriatingly _oblivious_.

Ariadne stomped down on his remaining hand and he fell. She watched him flail, taking in every line of his terror-stricken face as it grew smaller and smaller and…

With a stray thought, she twisted the world again. If she couldn’t make him repent, she’d make him suffer.

The ocean below the cliff vanished. It its place rose the twists and turns of the labyrinth. Her labyrinth. Ariadne sat herself atop one of the walls and gazed down at her father with an innocent smile.

“Welcome, father,” she said. “Why such the long face? Shouldn’t the walls be familiar to you? Comforting? Oh, that’s _right_. You were never forced to wander it like your children were. Which is sad, in a way, seeing as how it’s _just_ as much one of your children as we were. Of course, we always had each other, and what’s a journey without a little… company?”

She flicked her wrist, and an invisible creature - a conjuration born primarily of paranoia and fear rather than physical substance - loomed up behind him.

Ariadne’s lips twitched ever so slightly as she watched her father run himself ragged for the next several hours.

* * *

 

The amusement only lasted so long. Her brother was still dead. The torments she inflicted upon her father didn’t change that one simple fact.

Not that she planned to stop anytime soon. Her father’s dreams were easy to manipulate. It took barely a breath to tie the knots that forced him into her endless, shifting labyrinth. After that, Ariadne was free to explore other dreams. Other minds.

With each new mind that she touched, what’d once been a nondescript sea of unconsciousness was quickly morphing into a navigable web. Through her father, Ariadne located his closest advisors, and through _them,_ she tested the extent of her power.

From her dream interrogations, she learned her father was waking each morning more jittery and unravelled than the last. Deprived of basic sleep, he rapidly lost his sanity. He screamed at his servants, threatening to behead them, to throw them into the labyrinth. His advisors began doing their best to shuffle him away, to hide his sudden, mysterious illness from the people of Crete.

And so the king lost his crown.

The triumphant flare of revenge only managed to curl so far around her heart. No, her duty now was to prevent her family’s tragedy from ever repeating itself again.

The nights passed and Ariadne continued to worm her way fully into the minds of her father’s advisors. She learned how to control whether she was physically seen in a dream or not. The tactics she used depended on the man. Some feared her father and the ghosts of his children. To those she conveyed direct threats from the gods. Others were trickier. She layered symbolic omen upon omen until they cracked, scrambling to the temples for interpretation.

Ariadne twisted and pulled and manipulated until one thing was certain to the people of Crete. The labyrinth was a cursed structure that had to be destroyed.

Her one regret was that the dismantling took place during their hours. She made herself content with replaying the people’s various memories in their dreams, her face blank as the stones were torn down and traps disarmed one by one.

* * *

 

Ariadne stumbled across it by accident: a red beacon jutting out in the distance across her web. It lured her in with its enticing gleam.

She stepped easily enough into the dream, emerging into a balmy, sun-kissed day. Long wild grass swayed in silent wind that rolled over the coast. She wandered in curiosity until a peal of laughter rang out over a nearby hill.

Ariadne gathered the bottom of her chiton and began to run, her free hand brushing against the ground to balance herself. At the crest, she froze.

Theseus lay carelessly on the grass, a broad grin stretched across his boyish face.

Ariadne took a sharp breath in and sunk her feet into the ground. She’d ripped her father’s dreams apart until his mind had shattered and his precious labyrinth had been demolished. Theseus would be begging for a such merciful sentence when she was through with him.

She spun storm and shadow and roiled them together with her own pent up wrath. She reached deep into the dream, ready to unleash it all-

-and was blocked.

Ariadne stumbled as her own mind reeled with the backlash.

Steadying herself, she glared at a patch of ground next to her and willed a tree to grow. Something easy. Something simple.

The spot remained barren of trees.

Another laugh rang out.

Ariadne snapped. She bit back a snarl and raced towards the man, her hands aimed directly at his throat. As her fingertips touched his skin, they passed straight through along with the rest of her body. The unexpected momentum caused her to hit her ground on the other side and keep rolling.

She felt no pain as she pushed herself back up.

No physical pain at least. 

Theseus continued to lounge on the grass as if nothing had just happened.

Ariadne looked down at her hands. They were visible to her, so why not him? She scowled.

“Hey!” Ariadne yelled, waving her hands in front of his face. “Look at me!”

She hurled curses and threw ineffective punches for all the good they did. Finally, she slumped to the ground. He stood shortly after. Ariadne stared blankly as the prince approached a young woman nearby.

The woman was a short, little thing with jet black curls that matched Ariadne’s own. The woman’s nose was rather similar too, as was her strong chin. Her cheeks were rounder though and her smile far too open, still unlined and unmarked by life’s rougher moments.

Theseus kissed her gently before toying with one of her lower curls. They both bent their heads, gazing down at bundle the woman held in her arms.

The bundle squirmed and emitted a frail cry.

Bile rose in Ariadne’s throat.

It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t…

The scum didn’t deserve it.

Ariadne tried again, rushing towards happy couple to wrench the bundle from their arms, but she was nothing more than a shadow. She screamed mutely at them as they strolled leisurely through the seaside hills.

Then she stopped. She crossed her arms and studied their retreating backs.

She vaguely remembered the old Dreamer mentioning this. He had tried to read Theseus’ intentions towards her… had failed. Some of her father’s advisors had been ridiculously easy to break. It only made sense that there were minds that swung the other way.

Ariadne surveyed the peaceful scenery. She gazed up at the calm, cloud-brushed sky.

Well.

If this way was closed to her, she’d just have to find another.

* * *

 

With time elapsing in indefinite wisps, Ariadne had no idea how long it finally took her to find the wife’s dreams.

She stepped silently onto an expansive mosaic of the sea. It lay across a spacious room pierced by shafts of natural light. Her look-alike was seated by one of the windows, a large loom positioned next to her.

Phaedra was the woman’s name, a tidbit Ariadne had gleaned from other passing dreams.

“Why hello!” she said, a smile blossoming as Ariadne approached. “Do I know you?”

Ariadne ignored her to survey the room in depth. While it was easy to break someone directly, her plans for Theseus would require a more… delicate touch.

The walls were far too bright. The atmosphere too merry.

Ariadne frowned and the room distorted into a greying, cavernous temple. Reddish light filtered in from the distant entrance, casting flickering shadows across the walls.

Much better.

“W-what happened?” Phaedra asked. “Where are…?”

The poor thing was positively trembling.

“Shhh… I come as a messenger of the fates,” Ariadne said. She put a supporting arm around the girl, drawing her close. “You are Phaedra, wife of King Theseus, are you not?”

Due to an unfortunate communication error, Theseus’s father had committed suicide right before his return to Athens. Theseus had been crowned shortly after. Ariadne supposed that was a sign of divine punishment if any, but she wasn’t about stop now.

“Yes,” Phaedra said, her eyes wide with awe. “How did you know?”

“The fates know all,” Ariadne said with a thin smile. “Come. I bring a warning of things not yet passed.”

Ariadne steered Phaedra down the length of the temple. They stepped outside into a whirlwind of ash and smoke. Phaedra doubled-over, coughing. Ariadne stood back and waited patiently for the woman to notice her newest creation. When she did, she gasped in horror.

The city of Athens lay below them in flames. A massive fleet of war ships was anchored in the harbor. Soldiers tromped through streets, looting homes and slaying whoever crossed their path.

Ariadne let Phaedra drink in the illusion, warping her own mind against her. The woman turned, clinging to Ariadne’s chiton in desperation. 

“Why are you showing me such terrible things?!”

“Why indeed?”

“Unless… there is someway to stop it. Please me tell there is!”

She’d cast her net and the fish had swum straight in.

“There is, in fact, a way that all this can be avoided,” Ariadne said softly. “One single way to avert this destruction.”

“Please tell me how! If it’s within my power, I’ll do anything!”

“As it happens, it is within your power. In fact, more within your power than anyone else’s.” Ariadne turned away from the woman, letting sorrow drape over her face. “However…”

“However what?” Phaedra circled around to face her. “I already told you! I’ll do-“

“You must kill your son.”

Phaedra stared at her in shock.

“W-what?”

“In order to prevent this future from coming to pass, you must kill your son.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“Oh, I’d think the task is straight-forward enough.”

“But…” Phaedra looked blankly ahead in confusion. “What does my son have to do with any of this?! He’s only… he can’t even crawl yet!”

Ariadne sighed, laying a sympathetic hand on the woman’s shoulder.

“I never said it’d be an easy decision.”

Phaedra tensed and ripped herself from Ariadne’s hold.

“What decision?!” she spat. “I will _never_ murder my son!”

“Very well,” Ariadne said with a shrug. “Live peacefully knowing this future is entirely of your own doing.”

Ariadne dissipated into the shadows, abandoning Phaedra to the complete destruction of her home until the dream broke from her terror.

* * *

 

Ariadne tried to measure time by counting the nights she invaded Phaedra’s dreams. She kept herself invisible as she recreated the same destruction over and over again.

Well, mostly the same destruction. She couldn’t help but spice it up a bit here and there.

One time she had the poor woman attempt to rescue an old man from a burning building. The two had almost succeeded in escaping when Ariadne brought the crumbling structure down upon both their heads.

As the nights passed, Ariadne let Phaedra witness all sorts of deaths. Those of her friends… her family…

Theseus was the most fun to use. All of Phaedra’s memories carried over from dream to dream, something Ariadne used to her immense entertainment. The girl tried her very hardest to rail against her husband’s mortal fate. Each time Phaedra thought she’d found a way to prevent it, Ariadne developed a new, inventive way for him to die.

The sound of her anguished cries as the life repeatedly drained from Theseus’s eyes became Ariadne’s personal ambrosia.

When the dream broke again, this time from an invader running a spear through Phaedra’s chest, Ariadne collapsed backwards against the mosaic ground of her labyrinth.

Alone again.

Puffy clouds bobbed across the sky. Ariadne reached out her hands, shaping them as they moved past. They scattered into formless chunks as soon as she released control. It left her with an itch to make something more tangible. Something lasting.

Ariadne stood. Was this really the center of her majestic labyrinth: a pathetically small clearing with a single fountain?

She could do better than that.

With a deep breath, she flattened the walls behind the fountain with her right hand as she simultaneously rose a palace in its place with her left. Of course, that left her with a hundred new entrances to her inner sanctuary. That wasn’t secure at all. Ariadne flicked of her wrist, the earth itself rose, a gradual slope in the front giving way to impossible cliffs in the back.

She smiled at her handiwork and then entered her new abode. 

Yes. This would work quite nicely.

At first glance, the palace was open yet imposing. Nothing about the stairs at the end of the main hall betrayed the twisting stairs and shifting rooms beyond. Anyone who thought the labyrinth simply ended outside would find themselves quickly mistaken.

Although…. it _was_ a bit plain. Ariadne just knew she’d get a headache from staring at white all day. What it needed was an artistic touch.

She lost track of time as she coated the interior with mosaics and tapestries and pots and vases and statues in alcoves… Ariadne drew them all from her childhood, from the stories she’d been told, from her imagination, from her dreams…

Invigorated yet exhausted, she took a break as she passed one of the back windows. She leaned her arms against the sill and gazed out over the labyrinth.

After the transfer, she’d been able to easily feel the entirety of the labyrinth, but this was her first time ever _seeing_ it. Her creation truly was magnificent, the dying sun casting everything in red as it dipped below the desert horizon.

Ariadne picked a random spot and visually followed the twists and turns, rearranging intersections wherever she felt like it. She was about to move on from the window and resume her decoration when something odd caught her eye.

She frowned. About halfway between her palace and the outermost wall, a tiny structure was attached to one of her walls. A sort of… house. A hovel, really. She didn’t remember placing it there, and more alarmingly, couldn’t feel into it like the rest of her creation.

Before she could investigate further, the window vibrated beneath her. The world shifted, then cracked sideways.

Ariadne stumbled, trying to reorient herself. A sudden weight rested itself in her arms.

She was cradling a sleeping baby.

“Oh,” said a hollow voice. “You came.”

Phaedra was standing before her, her eyes dark and sunken. Daylight streamed in through a nearby window. It splayed against her skin, warmer and richer than anything the labyrinth’s sun could cast. It was real, it was alive, it was…

Ariadne was physically standing in the mortal world.

“What have you done?” Ariadne whispered.

“I… I know what your warnings said,” Phaedra said, “but I couldn’t kill him. I just… I tried, but I couldn’t, so please… If it will still avert that future, please take him!”

Ariadne looked down, mystified at the flesh and blood creature in her arms.

“I can’t,” she found herself saying. Phaedra’s wish had torn her across worlds. All of this was impossible. “You can’t. Mortals don’t have…”

“I’m giving you my child, my only child, so please take care of him! He is yours now!”

A faint rush of power swirled between her and the baby. Ariadne stared at him.

“Mine?” she said, brushing back one of his brown curls with a light finger.

A child of her own. She didn’t have to be alone anymore. There’d be someone beside her that she could raise, teach, tell stories to…

Phaedra’s presence faded to the back of her mind as Ariadne cooed softly at the baby, rocking him in her arms. She was vaguely aware of a despairing wail that echoed behind her as she drifted back into the realm of her labyrinth, but it too faded from her thoughts.

* * *

 

Ariadne was playing with her new baby, making incoherent babbling noises at him as his mouth widened in glee, when she was ripped from the labyrinth a second time. The baby traveled with her, wailing in her arms.

“Shhh… It’s okay, little one!” she whispered to him.

“Ariadne?!”

She recognized the voice even through her own shock.

Ariadne stared at Theseus. He stood across the hall, sword clutched between his hands. Phaedra trembled behind him.

“But you’re dead,” Theseus said. “I left you on that island. There’s no way you…”

Ariadne drew herself up, her eyes reflecting back the glint of his steel.

“Yes,” she said, cradling the baby protectively. “You killed me.”

Silence draped over the hall.

“You’re holding my son,” he said stiffly. “Return him to me.”

Ariadne studied the young king, eyes flicking up and down in disinterest. “What’s said is said,” she said. “The child was given to me. You have no more rights to him.”

“R-rights?” Theseus sputtered in disbelief. “I’m his father!”

He charged Ariadne with his sword. Her eyes shot wide in panic and she thrust out hand in a naive hope to block to the strike. She braced herself, expecting the blade to slice straight through, but it was wrenched invisibly out of his hands. It clattered against floor.

Ariadne froze, awestruck by her own power. Then she smiled.

She thrust her hand forward a second time and Theseus was flung back. Phaedra screamed, rushing to his side. Shouting echoed from the nearby corridors, and dozens of guards burst into the hall. They also charged at Ariadne, but she effortlessly shoved them out, slamming the doors behind them.

The sword disappeared from the ground and materialized in Ariadne’s hand moments later. She loomed over the royal couple, sword in one hand, infant in the other.

“Please have mercy on him, messenger of the fates!” Phaedra cried. She flung herself over Theseus’s prone body. “I tried to tell him there was nothing we could do, but it was his son! He couldn’t just- Please! Spare his life!”

Ariadne sneered. Hatred gnawed at her heart, clenching itself around her fist. It’d be so easy to raise the sword up and swing…

And then an idea struck.

“I will spare your husband’s life,” Ariadne said. “Not only that, but I will allow him a chance to reclaim your child.”

“But… won’t that cause the future to…”

“Do not question the fates. If your husband passes my trial, the disaster will still be prevented.”

Phaedra’s eyes widened as hope bloomed within her.

“You would do that?!”

“Spare me your immediate gratitude,” Ariadne said. “A chance is just a chance. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Theseus stirred. He pushed himself up and spat; it splattered on the floor, tinged with blood.

“Fine,” he growled. “What do I have to do?”

Ariadne’s cheeks rose in a sly smile.

* * *

 

It was cruel of her, calling it a chance.

Ariadne watched the entertainment from her palace, lifting the baby up to watch with her as Theseus struggled helplessly through her labyrinth. Perseverance had paid off after all. This was so much more satisfying than murdering copies of him night after night in Phaedra’s dreams had been.

When Theseus let out a curse of frustration, the words drifted all the way to the center of the labyrinth.

Ariadne cackled in glee. She flitted back and forth from window to window as the arbitrary time limit she’d set slowly wound its way down with the sun.

At one point, Theseus actually managed to find himself on the right track. The unexpected burst of competence offended her, and she quickly switched around several of the paths up ahead to throw him off again.

Eventually though, the sun dipped below the horizon, and Ariadne impatiently whisked him up to her new throne room. She reclined on the throne, baby sitting up against her chest. As Theseus lunged at her, chains wrapped around his legs and dragged him to the floor.

“Not much of a runner without a dog leading the way, I see,” Ariadne said breezily.

“Witch!” he spat. “It and that monster brother of yours can burn forever in Tartarus with you!”

Her nostrils flared in rage.

She’d expected insults against herself but not her brother. And again! Her brother had been called a monster for nothing more than his physical appearance! After all, it wasn’t as though everything beautiful was good. The proof of that was strung up in front of her.

Theseus struggled against his chains, looking desperately - not at her, she realized - but at her baby.

A monster, he’d said…

Ariadne smiled at the little one and wordlessly waved a hand over his body. She relished in Theseus’s choked cry as the baby’s fine hairs thickened into fur. A tail sprouted. His nose lengthened and morphed into a wet snout. As Ariadne bopped it playfully, the baby let out a wordless giggle.

“What have you done?” Theseus asked in breathless horror.

“He can be yours again,” Ariadne said, holding the baby up for Theseus to gather a better look,“if you would take him.”

“How dare you make such a black-hearted offer! You curse him and expect me to carry him back into my home?! He’ll be slain on the spot!”

“I assume that’s a ‘no’ then?” Ariadne asked. The baby giggled again in her arms, unaware of everything else around it. “Such a pity.”

* * *

Ariadne retired from her dream explorations after that. Oh, she still dreamt. As the Dreamer it was impossible to do otherwise. But she kept the excursions brief and impersonal, letting her mind drift wherever it was sent.

The rest of her time and attention was devoted to her new ward. He seemed to grow faster after the transformation, a entirely new hybrid of creature. If there was a word for him, Ariadne had no idea. Whatever he was though, he was hers.

She followed loosely behind as he chased birds through the hallways of her palace. They were small, flitting, mindless things created from her magic, but they seemed to amuse him to no end.

The walls shifted, and she was ripped across worlds again.

“Theseus!” Ariadne instantly roared. “If you summon me one more time, I swear I will plague the dreams of everyone you’ve ever loved and drive them all permanently _mad!_ ”

She whipped around, prepared to behead the Athenian king if given the chance, but Theseus was nowhere to be seen.

Instead Ariadne was standing in a dense olive grove. She could make out the city of Athens in the distance - _not_ burning for once. A young woman shivered before her, her clothes decent but somewhat plain and threadbare. A swaddled baby lay tucked in her arms.

“Oh… excuse me,” the woman whispered hesitantly, “but are you the Queen of the Labyrinth? It’s just, I’ve heard… That is, people say you take children.”

She held out the baby.

Ariadne stared at her.

“You’re… giving him to me?”

“That’s how it works, doesn’t it?”

“But…” By her best estimates, it’d taken Ariadne several months to tempt Phaedra into relinquishing her son. She never imagined anyone to just _wish_ for it on their own. “Why?” was all she was able to manage.

“Well, it’s not like he’ll ever be anything but another mouth for me.”

Ariadne flinched as the woman suddenly dumped the baby into her arms. It _was_ a terribly pathetic, scrawny little thing. His skin had patches of discoloration peppered across it, and he was missing his left eye. More worrying though was the way his skin stretched taut across the remaining socket. The way his collarbone jutted out against his emaciated chest, pointed and stark.

Malnutrition.

The woman was blathering on about curses and returning to the gods what was rightfully theirs. Ariadne ignored her. As she stared at child, all she could see was her brother. Their deformities may have been different, but - in spirit - they were twins.

“His name,” the woman the woman was saying, “is Ro-”

“Your name is irrelevant,” Ariadne snapped. “A parent who abandons their child has no right to name them.”

The baby wiggled then stirred. His remaining eye cracked open, and he smiled toothlessly at her. Ariadne smiled back.

“His name,” Ariadne said, “is Didymus.”

* * *

 

The years passed and her transactions grew. Greece rose and then fell, eclipsed by the Republic of Rome which, in turn, shifted sharply into an Empire. And as its influence spread, so did her own. The walls and passageways of her labyrinth teemed with the young lives she’d taken under her wing.

As they aged, her wards created things of their own: garishly bright murals, rough carvings… Despite their lack of technical skill, they took great pride in whatever they made, big or small, practically shoving it in her face whenever they passed by.

And it made her happy.

At least… it did at first.

There were only so many times she could look at the same childish stick figures over and over again, walk through the same sculpture forests, rearrange the same intersections…

Each new addition to her kingdom offered Ariadne the hope of change, no matter how improbable, and so she desperately took it. Just like now.

Another young woman was silently collapsed on the bedroom floor in front of her. The squalling infant in Ariadne’s arms was making enough noise for the both of them. She’d get a headache if she had to deal with it for much longer. Luckily, a number of her older wards had gotten fond of taking in the younger ones; Ariadne would probably pawn this one off on them when she returned.

The door burst open.

Wonderful. Another relative ready to protest.

It happened occasionally. The father would stumble across the transaction too late and attempt to fight her. It’d be an amusing distraction if they weren’t all _so_ predictable.

Ariadne sneered, about to tell him off, when the words caught in her throat.

The man halted in the doorframe, his chest heaving with exertion. His hair was black this time, peppered with grey. His cheekbones were softer as well, looking more human than bird for once. But the eyes… the eyes that stared back at her were the same as ever.

“Livia!” the man yelled. “What’s going on? Who is this woman!?”

Ariadne’s gut clenched. He had no idea, let alone memory, of who she was. To him, she was nothing more than a strange invader in the process of claiming his child.

His child.

Ariadne scowled at the woman named Livia and snapped her fingers. Time froze.

No one moved, save the baby. It continued to wail, its cries echoing harshly around the sparse room.

“Hush,” she said, tapping its forehead and silencing it.

Ariadne swept over to the man, circling him, evaluating. She’d never thought that he’d be… but then again, it _did_ make sense. If it’d happened to her…

Of course that left the question of now. Yes, Ariadne _could_ return ownership of her title and labyrinth to him, but unless things unfolded randomly and inexplicably different, she would die in the process. And then he would spend his time searching for her and then eventually pass his powers back and on and on the wheel would spin, the whole set of events repeating themselves again and again and again…

Still, she could hardly just walk away either.

Ariadne kept the woman immobile, but unfroze him.

“Livia!” he immediately yelled, rushing to her side. He turned to Ariadne in horror. “What did you do to her?!”

Ariadne rolled her eyes, a mixture of jealously and exasperation gnashing to get out. “The woman’s fine,” she said. “I thought we could talk.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Wait,” he said slowly. “I know you. You’re the Queen of the Lost Demons.”

Ariadne blinked at him.

“Queen of the What?”

“The Queen of the Lost Demons,” he said. “Cobbled from the remains of the children you steal.”

Ariadne took in a sharp breath. “I do not _steal_ ,” she said. “I take what is freely given. And furthermore, _demons_? Do you have any idea-”

“You’re stealing that child right now.”

“Freely given,” Ariadne repeated. “By her! Ask _her_ if you don’t believe me.”

The man glanced at Livia’s frozen form, then lifted an irate eyebrow.

“Fine,” Ariadne grumbled. “Ask her after I leave. I don’t want to deal with marital issues.”

The man grimaced. “Livia is my sister,” he said, “not my wife.”

“Oh?” Ariadne said. She cocked her head as she studied the woman, suddenly far more tolerant of the situation. “The two of you don’t look alike.”

“Did she really give up the baby?” he said, ignoring her observation.

“I can only appear if I’m summoned.”

The man frowned, his brow furrowing in thought. 

“Give the baby to me then,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“If she doesn’t want the baby, then I’ll take her. I’ll raise her.”

“I’m not sure you understand how this works,” Ariadne said with a soft chuckle. “You see, _she_ is the one who wished the baby and _I_ …”

 She trailed off as the man continued to stare determinedly at her. He crossed his arms, waiting. Ariadne fidgeted. She’d been bargained by desperate relatives before. She’d never once given in. Occasionally she’d let them run her labyrinth and subsequently fail, but that was the extent of her generosity.

On the other hand, it was _him_ …

“Very well,” Ariadne pouted, reluctantly handing over the baby. “But if I’m summoned again, I won’t be so lenient.”

“I guarantee, you won’t.”

Ariadne stared at him as he fussed over the bundle in his arms.

“Is there anything else?” he suddenly asked, not taking his eyes off the baby.

“What?”

“Is there anything else you require from me?” the man said. “Or are you free to leave?”

“Oh,” Ariadne said, her chest sinking. “Yes. Of course.”

As soon as she lifted the spell on Livia, the labyrinth sucked her back, her power only lasting so long outside transactions. 

* * *

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I…”

It was night and the stars lay plastered against an ink blue sky. The man was sitting on the edge of a large aqueduct, gazing up at them.

Ariadne hovered behind him, silent but apparently still detectable.

“I’ve already told you before,” he said. “I’d prefer to have nothing to do with you.”

The words slashed low across her pride. Had it been anyone else, Ariadne would’ve whipped the tranquil dream into a traumatizing nightmare. Unfortunately, his mind had the same annoying resistance she’d encountered in Theseus and a number of others over the years.

She could converse with him - she wasn’t _completely_ blocked out, but apart from that she held no power.

“Why do you keep following me?”

“Am I really that detestable?” she asked, hating the way her voice quavered ever so slightly.

The man sighed, running his fingers back through his hair.

“Regardless of whether it’s voluntary or not,” he said, keeping his back to her, “you take children. You’re bound to bring trouble.”

Her eyes swept down over the stones of the aqueduct. 

“What if…” she said, studying the perfectly aligned masonry. “What if I told you that I am who I am because of you? That my immortality was originally yours?”

“Then I’d tell you to keep it.”

Ariadne looked up.

“What?”

“I’d tell you to keep it,” he said. “I don’t want it.”

“But immortality… power…”

“Tell me. If they’re so great, why are you so quick to offer back them to me?”

Ariadne was caught off guard by the question. “It’s because they were originally yours,” she managed. “They should be yours.”

“So, bound by honor then…”

The man turned his head and smiled at her, his teeth gleaming in the starlight. Then he gestured for her to sit next to him. Ariadne hesitated, wary at the sudden change in his demeanor, and then sat, rearranging her chiton so it wouldn’t bunch underneath her. 

“Those things,” he continued, “sound amazing at first. I know there are men would that would slaughter nations just for the chance, but… I don’t know.” He sighed. “It seems like it’d get awful boring after awhile.”

Ariadne remained silent, trying not to let his words affect her as much as they did.

How many hundreds of years had she been existing like this now? How many hundreds were left? Thousands?

“Are you happy?” he asked.

“W-what?”

“It’s a simple question. The way you are, with your immortality and power. Are you happy?”

Ariadne traced her hands over the ridges of her bare feet. She looked up at stars and the horizon they hung over. The land stretched out as far as she could see in every direction. Mountains, rivers, forest… All she ever wanted to do was run. To get off her island and explore the world.

When had she become even more trapped?

Ariadne heard a snort beside her and turned to see the man shaking his head.

“And here you are trying to pass them on to me,” he said. “We must’ve really hated each other.”

“No!” Ariadne said quickly. “You were- that is, he thought he was doing me a favor!”

“Some favor.”

Ariadne frowned, her chest tired and aching. The man stood.

“Wait!” Ariadne said. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere. Anywhere.” He shrugged. “Wherever the wind takes me.”

“Please don’t leave,” Ariadne suddenly begged, eyes wide. “At least in dreams. Keep me company in your dreams. I don’t want…”

She fell silent, cheeks burning in embarrassment.

“Hmm?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “What was that?”

“I… I don’t want to be alone,” she said, forcing the words.

“That desperate, huh?” he said, flinging her emotions straight back in her face. Her heart plunged. He tilted his head, grinning with a just hint of canine. “A relationship built in dreams though? I’m sorry,” he said. “But where’s the future in that?”

The dream faded into nothingness as he walked away. Ariadne slipped through the ground, slipped back through the sea and into the labyrinth.

As she sat on floor of her palace, fuming at the rejection, one of her cheerful “demons” bounded into the room, eager to show her its newest pottery. Ariadne smiled sweetly back at the creature as she accepted the clay plate. She smiled blankly at the crude circles and squares painted on its surface.

She hurled it at the nearest wall where it shattered into hundreds of pieces. The creature shrank back in terror.

“OUT!” Ariadne screeched. She caught the eyes of other trembling creatures around the room. “EVERYONE OUT!”

Ignoring the way they all fled, Ariadne bent forward and buried her hands in her curls. She forced herself to breathe, deep and rhythmic.

He thought that was the end of it then, did he? That he could just kick her out of his life and leave her stranded in a prison of his own making?

No. She would find him again. She was certain of that. In another life. In another century. She would find him.

She’d find him when he was young and cling to him and never let go. If he didn’t want power, she’d sculpt him until he did. Even if she had to turn his world upside-down, destroy everything he held dear… she would find a way to make him hers forever.

He would become the labyrinth’s forever.


	9. The Tale of Sarah: Part Three

Sarah wound her way through the labyrinth, feeling rather than thinking the correct way forward. Every so often the walls acted up and led her to a dead end. When that happened, she'd simply make a small tutting sound of disapproval and they quickly rearranged themselves, like a dog that'd been caught with its nose in the trash. Gradually, the labyrinth bent more and more under her thoughts. It started rearranging itself before she even asked, and the dead ends disappeared all together.

It was really more of an uneducated guess based on her last journey than anything else, but at the rate she was going Sarah figured she'd reach the castle in just another hour or so. It was amazing how much distance she could cut when she made a beeline from the outer walls to the center.

Sarah slowed and then stopped altogether.

She’d been walking and walking and hadn’t actually _thought_ about what she’d do once she reached the center. Well, fight the Goblin King for his crown. That was a given. But beyond that, she hadn’t exactly devised any sort of _plan_. The walls rearranging themselves for her were nice at all, but they hardly gave her any sort of combat advantage. She was still a 23-year-old girl going up against a thousand-or-something-year-old… whatever the hell he was.

She feel mildly guilty for waving her friends aside earlier. Hoggle and the others were only looking out for her… They were thinking about this logically even when she couldn’t.

Sarah frowned as she felt a sudden tug, like someone had reached through her skin and was trying to drag her along by her stomach. The more she tried to ignore it, the more insistent the feeling got.

It was possible Jareth had conjured up some new kind of evil magic to throw at her, but she doubted it. He’d been clear on that at least; the battle wouldn’t start until she reached the center.

With a sigh Sarah started walking again in the direction of the tug. She let it lead her clockwise through the labyrinth - _away_ from center she noted with irritation.

Oh well, it’d be easy enough to get back on track.

Just as she was beginning to get fed up and walk wherever she wanted, tug or no tug, the winding path dumped her out into a miniature courtyard.

A thirteen-hour flower clock had been planted in the center of the courtyard. All its buds were shut except the ones between the third and fourth hour which burst open in a sea of radiant blues and purples. Beyond the clock an ancient willow rested, its branches hanging over the opposite walls. Hoggle and Sir Didymus were sitting on a plain stone bench below; Ambrosius and Ludo rested on the ground near by.

“Hoggle!” Sarah cried out, racing around the clock. They all turned at the sound of her voice. “Didymus! Ludo!”

“Sawah!” Ludo said, the hulking creature breaking into a large grin.

He lifted his arms up for a hug and Sarah crashed into him. She’d seen him earlier that day, but it’d been years and years since their last physical hug. Reflections only brought them so close together.

Sinking into his deep fur anchored her to reality like nothing else had. She buried her face in it, unmoving, letting the stress wash off her in waves. Then a cold wet nose, bumped against her leg. Sarah looked down and released Ludo to lavish attention on Didymus’ noble steed.

“Ambrosius!” Sarah rubbed the sheepdog’s back, his side… he flopped over, granting access to his stomach. She giggled as his tongue flopped out in happiness, and then looked up at the others.

They were both staring at her. Didymus had a pained sort of look, conflicted and unsure. Hoggle on the other hand was straight out glowering. As Sarah caught his eye, he crossed his arms and turned his head away with a gruff harumph.

“I did what I had to,” she told him.

“Still a bloody stupid thing if you asks me,” he said.

“What?” she snapped. “What would you have me do? Sit back and let Karen die? Is that what you would do if I was the one that needed help?”

He glared at her. “You know I’d never-”

“Then why is this so different?!”

Hoggle stayed silent.

“My Lady,” Didymus said, “the three of us… we just wish… Canst thou not see the folly of your current course?”

“No. No, I don’t. And I don’t understand what the big deal is. I’ve beaten him before. You know, ‘you have no power over me’ and all that?” she said with air quotes. “I’m mean, the whole reason I’m _here_ right now is because I have a piece of the labyrinth in me already! A piece I took from him!”

“The difference is…” Hoggle said. “That is, you beat him at his game. Now you’re trying to beat him as…” he shook his hands, trying to gesture to the concept, “well, _him_!”

“What are you trying to say?” Sarah asked, crossing her arms and leaning back on her ankles.

“You won’t last two whole _minutes_ against him,” Hoggle spat. “Jareth probably has more magic in his little toe than you have in whole body.”

Sarah sucked in a sharp breath. “Well,” she said. “I might have more than you _think_. You know how I found you guys? I just thought of you and - zap - my feet knew where to go.”

“Oh, that’s _very_ impressive. Be sure to tell _him_ that as he teleports from place to place.”

“I’m sure I’ll get the hang of that,” Sarah said with a flippant wave of her hand, even as his words churned uncertainty in her gut.

“My Lady… dost thou truly intend to do battle?”

The old fox-terrier was hunched over, paws clasped lightly in his lap. Sarah pushed herself up into a standing position.

“Didymus… I… You know I have to.”

“Of course,” he said. “Tis a noble quest to be sure. However, even it is possible to defeat our majesty, hast thou truly thought of what will follow?”

“I’ll heal Karen, and then… and then…”

“You’ll be stuck here forever,” Hoggle muttered.

Didymus frowned at him. “Not that we hope such a prospect is _entirely_ unwanted,” he said. “But you would have to bid farewell to your world forever. Is that truly what thou desires?”

Sarah paled slightly. It was a straight-forward prospect, one that kept getting thrown in her face.

Her dead end degree and volunteer work at the library would be over, swept out of existence. She could live with that. Toby and her father though… Would their memories of her disappear or would she simply go missing? They could file a report with every police department in the country and would never find her. Kidnapped. Possibly dead. Her life for Karen’s. 

“Maybe this is how it was always meant to be,” Sarah said, voice barely under control to keep from trembling.

“Sarah!” Hoggle yelled. “You can’t be serious!”

“Well, I am,” she said defiantly. “And I’m going through with it, whether you like it or not. Now. If you really care about helping me, what I really need is… I don’t know, some sort of a guide or guidebook. A way to win. A way to learn more about…” Sarah gestured expansively around the clearing. “This!”

“This?”

“Me. The labyrinth. My magic. Everything.”

“Look,” Hoggle said. “You did great finding us. Won’t deny that. But you have a single day of using your magic against centuries of him using his. If you think he’s going to give you enough time to close the gap…”

Sarah stayed silent as she listened to her friend drone on and on about her impossible chances. As he continued to talk, she slowly became aware of a soft permeating hum. It was the same one she’d felt when she’d punched a hole through the outer wall of the labyrinth.

“Shh!” Sarah said, cutting Hoggle off mid-word.

She bent on one knee and placed her hand on the nearest rock. Unlike before, the stones weren’t doing anything in particular, simply… living. Sarah breathed in and out in time with them. With the labyrinth itself.

She looked up to see Ludo smiling at her.

“Sarah. Rocks. Friends.”

“Do you hear this all the time?” she asked him.

“Friends talk. Ludo listens.”

She smiled back at him, then listened again to the rocks. She closed her eyes, sinking deeper into the sensation of shifting bedrock. Out of the muted web flared numerous bright spots, four of them nearby - corresponding to her four friends - with more and more scattered randomly across the labyrinth the further out she felt. Each shone with own mental color and… taste?

Curious, she turned attention to Hoggle’s spot, to Hoggle himself. A small mental brush left her senses mostly bitter with a minutely sweet aftertaste. Nothing surprising there.

With both the rocks and its creatures, Sarah started to piece together a new mental map of the labyrinth like one of those NASA photos of the earth at night. Annoyingly, she could actually feel the bits and places that were continuously shifting, places where she’d lost so much time the first time around. The entire thing pulsated in time to a hidden heartbeat. 

And then… there were certain spot of light that were dimmer.

Sarah poked at them and they flickered faintly. They still had a color to them but it was faint, closer to grey than anything else. And they were tasteless. Emotionless. They still represented something definitely alive and separate from the base rock, but other than that, they weren’t anything, but… just… _there_.

Sarah crinkled her nose.

“Do you guys know…?” She trailed off, trying to think of way to explain it to her friends that would make sense. “Is there anything in this labyrinth that’s alive, but not actually _alive_?”

“Oh, those would be Jareth’s creations,” Hoggle said matter-of-factly.

“He can create _life_?” Sarah asked, taken aback.

“Not quite… he can make things to do certain tasks. After while some of them develop minds of their own. Others don’t. It’s a flip which way they go, really. You met a couple them the last time you were here.”

“I did?”

“The helping hands… the knockers… You honestly think someone would _choose_ to tack themselves up on a door for eternity?”

“No, but… I didn’t really think there was a choice. I didn’t really think about them at all.”

Sarah tried to imagine eternity hanging on a door. Actually, the knockers had it worse than that: one was deaf for eternity, the other mute. Or rather, _worse_ than mute, a brass ring shoved in the one’s mouth.

She hadn’t been that great about it either. He’d been so relieved to breathe, to speak, and then she’d just shoved it back in because… because _why_ exactly? She could’ve just as easily chosen the other door, or removed the ring again once she was done with it.

One thing was certain: if Sarah ever made her own creature, she’d make sure it had a life worth living.

If…

“I want to try,” Sarah said.

“Sarah, wait!” Hoggle said, swinging himself off the bench. “You’re just going to cause more trouble!”

“Think before you act, my Lady!” Didymus cried out. “It could be dangerous!”

Sarah blocked out their words. She vaguely sensed them approaching and tossed up an invisible barrier. She closed her eyes and concentrated - not on anything in particular - but vague, swirling feeling deep inside her, an echo of all the pale dots scattered throughout the labyrinth. Power was building behind her temples, ready to course down her arms and into the world… and then it fizzled.

Her eyes snapped open. She frowned.

The clearing was exactly the same as she’d left it.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Hoggle was saying. “Now get rid of whatever wall this is and let us in.”

Sarah sighed in disappointment and stood. It wasn’t as though she expected anything specific, but still. If she couldn’t create one simple creature where Jareth had made thousands, it didn’t exactly fill her with confidence for the battle to come.

Some grime had rubbed off on the knees of her jeans; she bent over to swat them clean and paused.

A white and grey dog was traipsing around in the flower clock, scattering dirt and crushing blossoms as he went.

“Ambrosius?” Sarah said, staring at him.

She glanced back to the group. Sir Didymus’ loyal sheepdog was curled up next to Ludo. His head perked up at the sound of his name, but otherwise didn’t react.

The dog in the flower patch looked up as she stared at it again, and then bounded to the far side of the clearing. It paused in the entrance of one of the paths back into the main labyrinth. Its tongue lolled out and it visibly barked, but no sound came out.

It was waiting for her to follow it.

The corner of Sarah’s lips twisted upwards. Well, she’d asked for a guide, hadn’t she?

She started at a walk that quickly morphed into a run as she raced through the flower clock. The blossoms of the third hour shut and the fourth burst open in array of pink and white, scattering petals as she passed.

“Sarah, wait!” Hoggle yelled.

As soon as she grew close, the dog took off. Sarah glanced behind her to see friends chasing after her. Good. As long as they kept up, they’d able to stay with her.

Sarah followed the dog through the labyrinth, but it seemed to get faster and faster. Barely a blur of white waited for her at each intersection before it disappeared again.

She’d lose it if she didn’t speed up…

Sarah took a deep breath and pushed herself harder. Her run morphed into a full-out sprint. Left, left, right, left again, straight, right…

She slowed at one intersection to glance behind. She couldn’t see any of her friends.

Of the trio, Didymus was the fastest. He still had a chance of following. Ludo too. He lumbered more than ran, but could make up for it in size and gait. Hoggle on the other hand… He’d be lagging, clutching his side, cursing at the others to slow down.

If the three were sticking together, she’d quickly lose them all. The last time she wandered these walls, she would’ve never reached the center of the labyrinth without them. Maybe she should let them catch up, take the risk…

There was a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. The dog had stopped again. It scuffed its front paw against the ground repeatedly though, clearly impatient.  

Then again, if the dog’s entire purpose was to help her and speed was what it wanted…

Sarah pushed her friends from her mind and kept running.

* * *

Her final glimpse of the white dog was it rounding the corner. She followed closed behind and was deposited into another clearing. Or at least it was a clearing for anyone her roughly her height or taller. The ground was completely covered in a miniature labyrinth, its walls only about two or so feet high.

Sarah stepped over and around the walls, searching for any sign of the dog. If it was still hanging around though, she couldn’t find it. The only nearby life she could sense was herself.

There were at least five other exits back into the main labyrinth. Sarah twisted around, trying to find to some overlooked sign, some hint to help her choose. Her new, internal compass blared out the way to the castle at the center of the labyrinth, but Sarah was pretty sure that _wasn’t_ where the dog had been trying to lead her.

She was about to just pick one and hope the dog would pop up again later, when she heard labored shuffling behind her.

Sarah turned to see the Wiseman lumber into the clearing.

His bird hat was gone, but the rest of him looked the same and ancient as ever. He was hunched over, more of his weight supported by knobbly staff than his legs. Unlike her, he was treating the miniature portion of the labyrinth like the rest of it. He shuffled forward along the set path, not looking up. Occasionally he’d find himself at a dead end, began to fret, and then slooowly rotated 180 degrees to try a different route.

Was this what the dog had been trying to lead her to? The Wiseman hadn’t been of very much use the last time she’d met him, but - then again - she’d taken for granted that his answers were mindless nonsense. Now that she knew the labyrinth had a past, a very old and sprawling past… perhaps there were lost secrets shoved up away in some corner of the attic of his mind.

Sarah hopped on top of the short walls and made her way across the clearing.

“Hello!” she said when she was standing above the man.

“Huh? What?”

“I said, hello.” Sarah waved a hand in front of his face to grab the old man’s attention.

“What’s that?” he called out. “Who’s there?”

Sarah frowned. He’d been rather hard of hearing before, and eight years had passed since then. It was possible his hearing had gotten worse and he’d gotten blind as well. If that happened, she had no idea what she’d…

A thought struck and she sighed.

Sarah hopped off the wall and into the path of the Wiseman. He jumped slightly, then stared her up and down.

“Oh,” he said, gruffly, “It’s you. Come to switch names again?”

“What?”

“Suit yourself. Though I never really saw the point of any of it.” He shrugged, layers of clothes shifting with him like sluffs of snow on a mountain.

Irritation prickled at her skin. She’d forgotten how easy it was to get frustrated with his abstract response. She’d have to try her best to ask simple, direct questions and herd him back on course if he strayed.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, what kind of gossip spreads here,” Sarah said, “but whatever. My question to you: do you know a way of defeating-” Sarah hesitated. Bad things seemed to happen when she said his name; he seemed to listen for it like a demonic Pavlov’s dog, “-the Goblin King?”

“Ah, yes. Goblin King, Goblin King…” the Wiseman murmured to himself. “But are they goblins or imps? Creatures or demons? Once a name is given, it can never truly be defined.”

“Deep…” Sarah said, “but not exactly what I was looking for. Look. I don’t care what his official title is. Do you know a way to defeat him or not?”

“Defeat comes to those who seek battle first and victory later.”

“A magic sword! A magic spell! Anything!”

Wiseman stopped talking and stared at her for long moment. He opened his mouth to speak again. Sarah leaned closer…

“Sometimes the way forward is the way back,” he expounded.

Any anticipation that’d welled up deflated. Her shoulder slumped.

Not that line again.

Hoggle’d been right the first time around. It was a waste of time even trying to deal with the old man, let alone expecting anything useful.

Or was it?

He’d said those exact words to her twice now. Even if there was some sort of deeper meaning to them though, they didn’t exactly give her a specific direction forward. Or back.

Perhaps he was telling her to look to the past for ideas? That’s what had started her down this whole path after all: to depose Jareth as he’d done the previous Goblin Queen.

“There has to be something…” Sarah asked. She scrubbed her memories for any kind of detail. “That pendant! Didymus mentioned it multiple times in his story. What if I didn’t kill him? Would it be enough just to have it?”

Slight snores emanated from the Wiseman’s mouth. His eyes had fully shut, the man swaying back and forth slightly on his feet.

Sarah bit her lip. What she was about to do was a very rude thing to do, especially to an old man, but at the same time her current situation _was_ a matter of life and death…

“Hey!” she shouted, clutching his shoulders and shaking him. “Wake up! I’m not done!”

“Huh- what?” The Wiseman peered up at Sarah with bleary eyes. “You want my wisdom?” He cleared his throat. “Then let yourself reflect in another way, and you shall see that there is a great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: - either it is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose…”

Sarah listened impatiently, expecting his speech to taper off into a five second sound clip, but the old man continued on and _on_. She leaned back, waiting for him to get to the point, but it never came.

Dog guide or no dog guide, she didn’t have time for this.

Sarah hopped back on top of the walls and made her way to the nearest exit. Behind her the Wiseman droned on about ancient Greek kings, unaware that his audience had left him.

 

* * *

Sarah was aimlessly wandering now.

She knew very well which way the castle was. She knew should’ve been making her way there. After all, she’d have to go there sooner or later, and - like she’d told Hoggle - she had beaten Jareth before. Surely she could do so again.

She had a good chance of doing it again.

Had _a_ chance at least.

Part of her hoped to run into the dog again. She imagined it pouncing on her and then leading her to some forgotten, buried-away, magical artifact with the power to solve everything. But her path, even as it wound this way and that and ran into the occasional goblin, remained notably dog-less.

Sarah was currently making her way through a thick grove of fruit trees. At least, they looked like fruit trees. The trunks and branches were stone instead of bark, but real fruit grew from the ends, not by species, but by color. The tree to her left was a mixture of bananas, lemons, pineapples, and squash.

Half of her was curious to try something. The other half made her stomach revolt at the thought. Eating any sort of fruit here carried worse consequences than a pomegranate in Hades.

Still…

Sarah stepped off the main path and collapsed under the shade of the yellow tree. Taking a quick rest wouldn’t hurt.

At this point, it was clear that wandering wasn’t fixing her problems. It was just a nice way of procrastinating. She was focusing on the distance she put behind her legs instead of, you know, actually _thinking_ about her problems.

Of course, the more she thought about them, it wasn’t like her brain was coming up with anything new. At the heart of it all was a simple problem with not many solutions.

She needed Jareth’s magic. Jareth wasn’t giving it to her.

As much as she loved to talk, talking was off the table. She’d tried and failed at the talk method multiple times now. With that out of the picture, her options shifted to taking it by force. Taking it by force meant she’d have to fight for it.

To the death if necessary.

After that, it was just a matter of what advantages she could gather for herself, ways to increase her odds of success. Since it’d be a one-on-one battle, war tactics were pointless. She could _try_ and make it into an all-out war, but she honestly didn’t want to. Not if ended up being goblin against goblin.

No, this was between her and Jareth, and she’d keep it that way.

That left her…

…nowhere.

Sarah screamed in frustration and buried her face in her knees.

“Giving up already?” Jareth’s voice said. “Tsk, tsk. And here I had _such_ high hopes for you.”

Sarah’s head shot up, searching for the jerk. The grove was empty.

“Of course,” he continued, “it’s not much of a fight if you give up. Not a fight at all.”

His disembodied voice drifted through the grove from no particular direction. Sarah scowled. She should’ve known better, what with his crystals. He’d most likely been watching her this entire time, waiting for her to show the slightest glimmer of weakness.

“Shove off,” she said at the air. She pushed herself up from the ground and resumed walking. “I can take my time if I want.”

“You can, can you? And here I thought time was of the utmost importence.”

Sarah grit his teeth and ignored his words.

Jareth was simply goading her. If he’d spent this entire time _just_ watching her and nothing else, he was probably getting impatient as fuck. He wanted her to make a mistake, for her to attack, get the battle over with.

She just had to ignore him, to keep walking and keep moving at her own pace.

Sarah took another step and the grove melted away, replaced by the dismal interior of Karen’s hospital room. She was buffeted on all sides by commotion and chaos. Doctors sprinted past her, hitting buttons and grabbing equipment.

“We’re losing her!” one shouted, a pair of defibrillators in hand. “Clear!” Karen’s heart monitor spiked irregularly. “Clear!”

The doctor tried a couple more times to no effect. The monitor spiked one more time and then flattened. A single, unending tone permeated the air, sucking out all other sound.

And then a muted sniffling came from her right.

Sarah looked down to see Toby standing rigidly by her side. Her brother’s eyes were red, his cheeks blotchy and tear-stained, but he didn’t cry. He just stared straight forward at the pale corpse of his mother.

She bent to comfort him and froze.

The scene continued to play out as though she weren’t there. Because she wasn’t. It was an illusion.

“Bastard!” Sarah yelled. “I thought you said _I_ had to start to battle!”

“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of going against protocol,” his voice said lazily. “This is just… a little something to whet the appetite. Gets the blood flowing, don’t you think?”

Sarah reached out and tried to melt the hospital room back into the grove she’d left. Nothing response. Any power she’d gained in the labyrinth was dead here.

Scowling, Sarah forced herself to ignore her grieving brother. No. He _wasn’t_ her brother. He was an illusion. Everything was an illusion.

She stepped out of the hospital room and into a graveyard.

It was a small affair. Her father and Toby were there along with a couple of her close-by aunts and uncles. Karen’s side of the family was there. They all stood silent and rigid, pillars of black against the smaller tombs of grey.

“Pathetic, isn’t it?”

The voice had a distinct source this time. Sarah whirled around to see Jareth lounging atop one of the largest, intricately carved memorials in the cemetary.

“A scant number of decades, a life of soul-crushing work,” he said, “and nothing to show for it but a rough slab and hole in the ground.”

“If you hate it so much,” Sarah said, trembling in rage, “get the fuck out.”

“I said it was pathetic, not unentertaining.” He gestured lazy hand at Toby and her father. “How long do you think they’ll continue to grieve for the woman? A year? A decade? The rest of their short, miserable lives? And to think, you could’ve had the power to stop it.”

“My chances aren’t up yet, Jareth. I _will_ have the power, and I _will_ stop it.”

Jareth’s only response was a simple dismissive shrug. He couldn’t have been more insulting if he’d conjured a bag of popcorn and began to munch.

Sarah took deep breath.

She had to stay calm. He wanted the fight to happen right then and there. Once upon a time she’d told him he had no power over her. Right now, it felt like only power she had was over her own emotions. She wouldn’t give into her aggravation.

That said, one particularly aggravating thing about her new location was the lack of exit doors. There was just more and more graveyard as far out as she could see.

She walked stiffly in one direction, averting her eyes as her step-mother’s coffin was lowered into the ground. She passed by grave stone after grave stone, always aware of the Goblin King’s presence directly behind her.

She walked and walked until she felt like she was trapped in one of her father’s favorite classic movies with artificial background moving past her like a video. She didn’t realize when the solemn, stone angels morphed into cackling goblins. When the tree gathered closer and closer until their upper branches began to knot together, blotting out the sky.

Sarah heard a commotion nearby. Muffled shouts pierced the air, mixed with the grunt continuous struggling. She almost ran to save whoever was in danger, but caught herself at the last second. The scenery had shifted without her notice this time, but still part of the same illusion…

Sarah stared up into the tangled branches, spinning slightly as she walked, her feet trailing across the wet grass. She didn’t know if it was an illusion or not. Her new senses were still locked, but it was possible that she’d wandered back into some labyrinth graveyard. Did goblins even die?

Another muffled shout echoed through the trees, Sarah sprinted towards it. Her hand flew to her mouth as she rounded a corner.

A massive goblin patrol was grouped around three graves. Sarah caught a brief glimpse of Hoggle, bound and gagged as he was forced towards the middle grave. His eyes locked with Sarah’s briefly, and then he tumbled out of sight.

Moments later, one of the goblins dumped in the first shovel of dirt.

Not caring whether it was an illusion or not anymore, Sarah grabbed the nearest loose branch and sprung forward.

She managed to knock out four goblins before the rest noticed. They swarmed her, pushing her back before she’d even really advanced. She called out to the rocks, to the ground, the sky, anything, but - apart from a depressing, initial fizzle - they were completely silent.

“Hoggle!” she shouted.

A distant, smothered groans answered her. As well as other smothered groans from the other graves.

Sarah paled.

This was one of Jareth’s illusions. It had to be an illusion. Surely he wouldn’t…

A spear thrust towards her from the right. It broke through her defenses and gashed open her left side. Sarah winced in pain and swung at the goblin, knocking it into oblivion.

But there were still so many more, they circled her, slashing, lunging…

She was pushed further and further back until she was up against a nearby tree. She panted heavily, sweat dripping down her forehead. As Sarah kept her attackers at bay, she heard a cackle drift down from above.

Her neck shot back, to see Jareth reclining against one of the upper branches.

“Oh,” he said, dancing a crystal between his hands, “don’t let me distract you. You’re doing such a wonderful job.”

Another flash of silver caught her eye, and she barely reacted fast enough to block it.

“Tell me this is just another one of your illusions!” she growled, kicking a goblin back with her foot.

She was met with an unsettling silence. In the distance, the goblin patrol continued to shovel dirt into the graves. Her friends’ cries… she strained to hear them now, especially over sound of battle.

“Well?!” she asked, wincing at panic that slipped into voice.

“It’s a fair question,” came Jareth’s voice. “What do you think?”

“That’s-!” She swung at another goblin. Her arms were beginning to ache, her body to tire. “That’s not an answer!”

“Is it not? That is to say, if this is truly the limit of your abilities, then I’m afraid this is the future that will come to pass. One way or another.”

The last of her resolution snapped. With final swing of her arm, she hurled her branch straight at the Goblin King. The world shattered around it as it whistled up, the dark woods of the graveyard cracking away to reveal dingy stone.

The castle at the center of the labyrinth.

Jareth dodged the branch with a shrug. It hit the wall behind him and clattered against the throne room floor with a series of dull thuds.

“Finally,” he said, clasping her hands together. “I thought you’d never arrive.”

“You _bastard_!” Sarah yelled. “Is this really all you live for? Watching other people suffer?!”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s _all_ I _live_ for,” he said. “But I won’t deny that it’s a perk of the position.”

Sarah screeched in rage and lunged at him.

She wasn’t thinking. She wasn’t… _anything_ right now. Only thought raced through her mind.

Jareth’s reign would end today.

Sarah didn’t even get to chance to get within attacking distance when the ground shifted beneath her feet. It rose in a spiral, clamped around her ankle, and threw her to the floor. She cries out as she hit the ground, breath leaving her lungs in a sharp crack.

Pushing herself up, she barely registered a flash of movement before Jareth was above her, his sword slashing down in deadly arc. Sarah tugged at her stone manacle in panic, trying to free her leg.

Come on come on _come on_!

Sarah yelped as her entire body shifted out of existence, passing through the stone as if it was air. She tumbled across the floor as steel struck stone behind her.

She jumped to her feet, reinvigorated by the unexpected victory. Her body hummed with the feel of magic again. Whatever had blocked it in the illusions had vanished.

And that was Jareth’s first big mistake. If those three graves had been illusions after all, it meant her friends were still alive. It gave her something to fight for.

“You wanted a battle, Goblin King?” Sarah asked with a mocking smile. She let her power course and bubble within her, building pressure like a dam. “Be careful what you wish for!”

Sarah unleashed it into the floor, and the entire world snapped 90 degrees. She grabbed hold of the nearest pillar and held tight as Jareth fell back, further and further, until his body slammed against what’d once been the far wall. She grinned as she watched him push himself up and scowl at her.

The stone pillar she was clutching softened and then began to wriggle. Glancing up, her fingers were buried into a column of snakes. She let go with a small scream.

The stone rose to catch her as she fell, then toppled as Jareth carved out a huge chunk.

Sarah felt a magical tug-of-war as they both wrestled for control of the loose stone. With a sharp tug, Sarah yanked it out his mental grasp and sent it barreling at him, set to crush him flat against the opposite wall. She cursed as he did the same, existence-flickering thing she’d done earlier and stepped straight through her attack. The stone shattered behind him, sending up a cloud of dust and debris.

That did give her idea though.

Sarah reached forward, pulled the cloud further up and out until it coated the entire room, rendering them both blind. That was okay though. She had other senses now.

Other senses… Other dimensions…

Sarah stepped backwards, backwards across the floor, across a mirror and through to the other side. She covered the room in mirrors. Her reflection gazed out across the destroyed throne room as the dust began to clear. Sarah crossed her arms and smirked as Jareth noticed her newest spell.

The smirk transformed into a laugh as he bashed his sword through one panel, breaking nothing but common glass and silver paint.

“If this is truly the limit of your abilities, you’re going to have to do better than that!” she called out, letting the mockery drip across each word. She closed her eyes for briefest moments, reveling in his frustration, and then screamed as a hand clamped across her wrists. She was dragged back through the mirror and into personal space of very irate Goblin King.

“Mirror tricks are children’s play,” he said, suddenly too close. Way _way_ too close.

Her eyes dropped instinctively to the sword in his hands. His did as well. His fist clenched around the hilt.

So she did the first thing she could think of.

She hocked as much saliva as she could and spat it straight in his face.

His grip loosened, and Sarah took advantage of quick distraction to dart back out of his grasp.

“You…” he growled, wiping her spit from his face with back of his leather glove. “If your step-mother doesn’t die from her sickness, I  promise you I will kill her myself!”

Sarah sucked in a breath of rage and tilted reality a second time. Jareth wasn’t as unaware this time; he stumbled, but ultimately kept his balance.

So she tilted it again. And again. And titled and twisted and ripped and cracked it until it looked less like reality and more like a shattered diamond where one step across certain space could fracture matter itself.

Her blood was on fire.

It pumped through her, burning every vein and limb… Every act of magic she performed fed rather than consumed her. She wrenched Jareth’s sword from his hands at one point and began to attacked her directly. The man had insulted her, threatened her, humiliated her, rejected her…

A kick here, a punch there…

The first several blows he avoided through simple dematerialization. Then he began to flicker and switched to physically dodging them. He slowed, raising his arms to block them instead.

The magic flowed into her, draining away from him, crippling his defenses…

Sarah threw another punch straight at his perfect nose, drunk with the rush of power. He’d laughed at her once, attempted to condemn her to eternity. At least, she’d finally make him pay.

He dodged at the last minute, elbowing her in the stomach and sending her sprawling. Her hair-tie snapped. Her hair tangled against itself, stuck to sweat on face, got inside her mouth. She spat it out with a small choking noise and glared at him as he approached.

“Give up,” she heard him say coldly. “A person like you will be never worthy of my labyrinth.”

The king was mocking her.

She snarled, sweeping her leg out, and knocked him onto his back. She pounced before he could react, and they tumbled across the floor struggling for dominance. Her hands reached out, reached past cloth, and gripped cool metal. Two sharp points dug into flesh of hand.

The pendant.

Her arm yanked back, and she felt cord snap.

He lay beneath her, pinned to the floor by her weight. Her hair fanned down either side of her face as she leaned over him, one hand pressed against his shoulder, the other clutching the pendant.

“This was always _my_ labyrinth!” she snarled.

She raised the pendant high, ready to strike.


	10. The Tale of the Bookkeeper: Part One

“No, no,” droned a lamenting, nerve-grating voice. “That will never do. Organizing them by title? Author, yes, by author would a much better choice. A much better choice indeed. Or better yet, subject. Titles these days are becoming too nonsensical. How will anyone know what they are reading before they read it? And you cannot continue to simply _pile_ them onto the shelves like that. Eventually you will encounter-”

“Enough!” the Bookkeeper snapped. “I know how to store my own books!”

Several of the scrolls knocked off their shelves and clattered onto the floor as he turned. The Wiseman silently stared at them for several deep moments before flicking his clouded gaze back up. The Bookkeeper growled in irritation and then bent down to regather them.

“I’ve always organized everything by title before,” he muttered. “I don’t know why you’re complaining now.”

“As the world changes, so must its keepers.”

“Hah! Change. That’s a good one.” The Bookkeeper shoved the scrolls back onto their shelves. He paused, his fingers lingering on one. Grabbing it, he turned and waved it in front of the Wiseman’s face. “You want to know about change? Read this.”

“I have no need.”

The Bookkeeper ignored him. He unrolled the scroll and quickly began devouring the words inside.

“The mortals who write these are fascinating,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the stories… the concepts… There are so many _unimaginable_ things. Did you know they possess this ability called ‘sleep’ where they can temporarily deprive themselves of conscious thought? And then there’s this feeling called ‘pain.’ To be quite honest, it sounds horrendous, but apparently it’s such a huge thing they’ve divided into several thousand categories. There’s hunger and thirst and illness and love and-”

“We are not them.”

“Obviously,” the Bookkeeper said dryly. “They change and we don’t. Their sun moves while ours doesn’t. They live and die while we just stand here doing… doing nothing!”

“Nonsense. We are caretakers of Thought and Reason. You keep the books and I hold wisdom. That is hardly _nothing_.”

“Poetically descriptive,” the Bookkeeper said. “Truly. But where did we come from? _What_ are we?”

“We are… who we are,” the Wiseman said. He sighed. “And the sooner you accept that, the less discontent you’ll be.”

The Bookkeeper crossed his arms, glowering darkly in silence as the Wiseman shuffled off. He looked at the scroll dangling limply in his hands and then slid down the side of the bookshelf onto the stone floor.

There weren’t any chairs in the house. No chairs. No tables. No beds. If the Bookkeeper hadn’t read about such things, he wouldn’t have even known they existed. He understood the concepts of rest and of sleep - at least he thought he did, somewhat, but he didn’t need them.

The walls of the house were bare as were its floors. There were lamps, plain little things sitting high out of reach; they never flickered and never ran out of oil.

If it was necessary for his work, it existed. If it wasn’t, it didn’t.

The world was straight-forward like that.

As he sat, a new scroll appeared in his lap, conjured forth from only who knew where. He’d asked the Wiseman about it once and had received the usual non-answers. Inside the scroll waited a new book, freshly penned from the mind of its author.

The Bookkeeper glumly began to stand and resume his endless duty… and then paused.

Most of his scrolls had wooden rollers, a rather common and cheap resource from what he’d read. Mortals cared about things like that. This new scroll had rollers made of gold. They shone, the metal gleaming in the lamplight.

If the materials used in the book’s construction were unique, then surely the contents had to be equally…

The Bookkeeper glanced at the door that the Wiseman had exited through. His older companion liked to wander around the house, muttering to himself new phrases of wisdom as he went. Since he’d just left, he probably wouldn’t be back for a good while yet. The old man didn’t approve of any reading the Bookkeeper did outside the strict purposes of categorization. But a quick peek at the first couple of sentences couldn’t hurt… perhaps just the first couple of paragraphs…

He broke open the binding of the scroll and began to read.

It was like nothing in his small library so far. The book weaved a story of a man, part-mortal, part-god. He wasn’t a particularly good man, but he wasn’t a bad one either. The Bookkeeper sat mesmerized as the man encountered monsters, fought enemies, made friends… Longer and longer he unfurled the scroll. The man and his friend were facing a deadly foe. The friend was injured. He was approaching death-

That was the end of the scroll.

The Bookkeeper blinked in confusion. He tugged at the bottom as if more would magically appear.

“It has not been written yet.”

The Bookkeeper looked up to see the Wiseman staring down at him with a rather patronizing sort of air. Then the old man sighed and lumbered off again.

The Bookkeeper looked back down at the story. So the humans were beginning to write them in parts now? The thought was both simultaneously annoying and thrilling. He stood up to place the book on the shelf with the others and froze.

The room’s entire floor was covered with new scrolls.

How long had he been reading?

The Bookkeeper sighed in irritation as he rolled the golden scroll back up in sharp jerks. There was no use dwelling on it. He shoved it onto the shelf and resumed his work.

As much as he hated admitting it, the Wiseman had a point. There’d never been this many new books at once. The mortals were writing more and more of them with every passing moment. He’d run out of room on his shelves soon enough and then what? More shelves? More rooms? When the next installment of the golden scroll’s story arrived, would he be organized enough to quickly find its place?

The heroes of his books didn’t have to worry about such problems. The lives they led were so different… had actual _meaning_. None of them would stay here, shelving scroll after scroll for eternity with only a doddering old man for company. They’d have adventures. They’d go out into the world and find them.

More scrolls had appeared by the time the Bookkeeper had finished with the initial batch. He rolled his eyes at them and left them on the floor.

The house had many corridors. The Wiseman loved to pace and wander, and it built itself to fit his needs. The Bookkeeper had walked down them before, although not very often. They weren’t part of his work.

He walked down them now. The corridor directly outside his book room was completely enclosed, as was the majority of the house. Still, there were one or two windows hidden among the smaller corridors, as long as one knew where to look.

The Bookkeeper found one in the fourth one he turned down.

It was just as he’d remembered, more like a hole that the builder had forgotten to brick-up than a proper window. It opened up a view into a vast forest, the furthest reaches lost in shadow. The noon sun shone down in patches between the forest leaves, bright and constant.

He’d spent his whole existence in the house. He’d spent his whole existence learning and learning about the endless wonders of the mortal world while his own personal knowledge ended with the first line of trees…

The Bookkeeper glanced back at the barren corridor he was standing in. The Wiseman would be displeased. The Wiseman would catch him and lecture him until his ears fell off and he promised never to abandon his books again.

The Wiseman wasn’t here.

He looked back towards the forest and leapt.

* * *

This had been a terrible idea. A terrible, terrible idea.

Every book had a hero. That was a simple enough fact.

The Bookkeeper thought of the heroes a lot. He thought less about the thousands of other characters. The simple farmers. The unassuming workers. The hapless victims of storms and plagues and godly wraths and whatever other troubles their respective authors had chosen to throw at them.

The Bookkeeper’s robes snagged as shoved his way through a prickly bush.

He cursed out loud and began trying to yank free, throwing all his weight behind the effort. The fabric tore with a loud rip, and he tilted backwards. His foot hit a curved root and slipped, tumbling down the hill, a mess of arms and legs.

He rolled to a stop well after the ground had leveled itself out.

The world was still spinning. He tried and failed to sit up, collapsing back down with a heavy thump. The dizzying feeling _was_ new, he’d credit it that, but it was hardly the type he’d been hoping to experience.

Keeping on his back, the Bookkeeper spread his fingers out, clawing into cool grass and the dirt beneath. He stared up at sky and tracked the clouds as they puffed past.

Clouds. The open sky. He'd never seen this much of it before.

Propping himself up with his elbows, the Bookkeeper glanced around at his new surroundings.

He'd rolled into some sort of clearing, the tree line stopping abruptly a short distance off, creating a natural sort of ring. The grass, allowed here to absorb the full light of the sun, was thicker and greener than it’d been in the rest of the forest. Nearby, a small circular… _thing_ lay.

The Bookkeeper idly crawled his way towards it. The thing was apparently some sort of pool: its mysterious contents, water. Or at least what he assumed was water. He’d never physically encountered the substance before.

He had sudden urge to drink some.

He didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t as though he was thirsty. In fact, he didn’t even know what “thirsty” felt like. Still, he’d escaped the house to experience new things, hadn’t he?

He flinched in shock as his hand sliced through the surface, not expecting the cold nor the strange, mild resistance. He scooped up a handful, but all of it dripped out before it could reach his mouth. He tried again and instantly coughed it back out.

The Bookkeeper flopped back down across the grass, wincing at the sickening way it’d trickled down his throat.

Well.

This adventure was turning out to be mostly a failure. Not that that came as much of a surprise in the end… Life in the house was so boring, it seemed only fitting that the outside world should be equally so.

It was also rather unsettling not having anything to actually _do_. Most of him wanted to continue on, to try and find something exciting and justify the effort he’d put in so far… but the rest couldn’t stop worrying about his books.

He’d just _left_ them on the floor! His books! How could he have done such a thing? They’d be piling up on the floor haphazardly without him. The Wiseman would probably trip over one and add that to the never-ending list of lectures that was growing exponentially even as he thought…

The Bookkeeper tried to move, tried to take that first step back to the house, but his limbs were oddly heavy. His eyes too. They drooped, aching to fall shut. His head felt unnaturally fuzzy.

Maybe the water had done something to him? The thought should’ve worried him, but for whatever reason he couldn’t find enough energy to care.

Perhaps with just a bit of rest, he’d be fine to stand up and start…

* * *

The heroes entered the forest, its cedar trees looming tall and proud above them. The Bookkeeper let his feet carry him forward. They seemed to know his destination better than he did.

A stranger walked beside him. No, not a stranger. He was his comrade. His best friend.

They’d come here together to find…

A large boom echoed through the forest, shaking the leaves of all the nearby trees. Then another. And another. There was a metal ring as his companion drew his sword from its sheath. The Bookkeeper glanced down at his hands. He had a sword as well.

The trees were suddenly wrenched apart in front of them.

Humbaba the Lion-Faced Ogre lumbered towards them, snarling in rage.

“You!” the ogre roared, jabbing a finger towards the two men. “You betrayed me! I swear I will rip you apart and feed your flesh to the birds! You _and_ your friend!”

The Bookkeeper faltered as the giant ogre turned the full weight of his glare upon him. His hands and the sword they held trembled.

“Have faith, my friend.”

The Bookkeeper glanced at his companion. That’s right, Enkidu was his name. His face was grim, yet determined.

“We’ve conquered far greater than this,” Enkidu said. He glanced at the Bookkeeper out of the corner of his eyes and grinned. “You choose _now_ to finally embrace fear?”

With a great battle cry, Enkidu lunged forward. The ogre caught the man’s sword with his claws and pushed him away.

“Come!” Enkidu yelled at the Bookkeeper, rolling away as the monster spat a fire blast. “The only way to win this battle is together!”

A warmth stirred through the Bookkeeper’s veins. His legs were running towards the beast before his mind could make a conscious decision. He swung his sword and blocked and then dodged and swung again.

Even with both of them pitted against the ogre, it was an arduous battle. The Bookkeeper’s hands and face became slick with sweat. His breath was coming in shallow pants, and his limbs _burned_.

The Bookkeeper fell to the ground in exhaustion, his arms too weak to lift his sword against the ogre’s fist smashing towards him. This was it. It was over.

The ground shook.

The sky darkened rapidly, staining from blue to indigo to black. Winds whipped through the surrounding branches, howling as they wrapped themselves around the ogre’s limbs and wrestled him to the ground. Humbaba the Ogre roared in defeat.

A flicker of movement caught his eye. Enkidu was standing next to the Bookkeeper, his open hand outstretched towards him. The Bookkeeper took it, letting the man pull him to his feet.

“Have mercy! Have mercy, great warriors!” the ogre shouted from his prison of wind on the forest floor.

“Disgraceful,” Enkidu said, shaking his head. He turned to the Bookkeeper.“I’ll let you have the honor.”

“The honor?” the Bookkeeper said blankly. “Of what?”

“Of claiming this monster’s head of course.”

The Bookkeeper blinked at him.

“Why?”

“ _Why?_ Surely you jest, my friend,” Enkidu said with a laugh. “This beast has terrorized humans across the land. His death will bring you great honor.”

“I’ll give you my trees!” the ogre pleaded again. “I’ll give you anything.”

The Bookkeeper glanced back and forth between the two beings, paralyzed. He blinked and his sword was at the ogre’s neck. From this close distance, he could see tears welling in its eyes.

“I only did what I was made to do,” it said.

_“Kill him!”_

“Have mercy please!”

_“Chop off its head! It would have done the same to us!”_

“I don’t want to die!”

_“It’s already been written! You must take his life!”_

“No!” the Bookkeeper snapped. He needed the two of them to quit talking. He needed… He snapped his head towards the sky. “Whoever you are, _stop_ this!”

A gentle sigh drifted through the clearing.

“You’re the one controlling it,” a smooth voice said. “Not me.”

The Bookkeeper spun around, searching for its source. He found it, sitting up in the branches of a nearby by tree, swinging its legs. Or rather, her legs.

“Why are you doing this?” the Bookkeeper asked. “Why am I here?”

The girl frowned. “I’m not doing anything,” she said. “It’s your dream.” She sighed again. “And it was a really fun one up until you _stopped_ everything.”

“Fun? You tried to make me kill a creature that was begging for its life.”

The girl raised an eyebrow. “It’s a dream,” she said flatly. “It doesn’t matter what you do in them.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?!”

The girl continued stared at him. Her forehead wrinkled slowly in thought.

“You have no idea what a dream is, do you?”

The Bookkeeper thought back. He’d read about dreams… somewhere… They were extremely important things. Gods spoke to humans through them. They tended to be laced with omens of the future. To dream was to receive great wisdom.

The girl sighed for a third time.

“I’m going to get nowhere with you in here,” she said.

She clapped her hands.

* * *

The Bookkeeper jolted awake with a gasp.

He was in the clearing again… was in the clearing _still_? The grass was soft beneath his hands. Leaves rustled softly in the faint breeze. The sun shone down gently from above.

“See,” said a familiar voice. “It was all in your head. Well, _our_ heads.”

The same girl from before was immersed in the clearing’s pool. Her bare arms rested on the banks while her sodden, black-brown hair clung to the sides of her pale face, trailing down, down into the water. Her eyes were a slightly lighter color, wide with curiosity. She smiled as he stared at her and gave him a small wave.

“It really _is_ a shame though that you stopped it all like that,” she said. “That was the most interesting dream I’ve shared in ages.”

The Bookkeeper clutched his head. Everything was still slightly fuzzy, but it was better than before. He’d… recovered. Recharged. Refreshed.

“You said… ‘dream?’” he asked.

“Yes. It’s kind of my thing.”

“Dreams are what mortals do when they sleep.”

“Yes?” she said uncertainly. “It’s kind of _their_ thing.”

“I don’t sleep though,” the Bookkeeper said. “I’ve never slept.”

“Well, apparently you do now” - the girl looked thoughtful - “or did. Do let me know if you drift off again. I want to know what happens next.”

“What? To the ogre?”

The girl nodded.

“Oh.” Now that he was awake, the Bookkeeper’s memories came to him easily. His dream hadn’t been original in the slightest; it had simply replayed events from the book with the golden rollers. “I can just tell you.”

“Really?!” she said brightly. “So do you kill the ogre? Or spare it?”

“I kill it. I- I mean,” he said, conscious of her expectant stare. “I don’t kill it. _He_ kills it. He’s the main hero you see.” The Bookkeeper leaned back and glanced up at the sky. “And I can’t tell you too much else right now because it hasn’t been written yet.”

The girl frowned.

“Has anyone ever told you that you don’t make that much sense?”

“It’s from a book. You know,” he added at her blank face, “a story? They’re things that mortals write down about other mortals and things that don’t really exist but at the same time they do?”

“Oh!” she said. “So it’s a type of dream!”

“No. No, not a type dream.“

“But you said-“

“It’s different,” the Bookkeeper said. He crossed his arms. “It’s- Well, I suppose a dream could be a kind of story, but books are more like… Do you even know what writing is?”

The girl was silent for moment before managing a hesitant, “…no?”

Now it was the Bookkeeper’s time to sigh. He gave her a brief lecture on the history of writing and the books that’d arisen from it and the worlds he often imagined within his head because of them. The girl - for her part - seemed fascinated, nodding after every other sentence.

“So that’s what you do then?” she asked after he explained his role. “Keep the books?”

“That’s what I do.”

“They seem rather amazing,” the girl said. “Your books.”

The Bookkeeper nodded.

“They are,” he said. “I can bring some with me next time… Or better yet, come with me!” He stood up, brushing off his robes. “The house isn’t that far way. There are shelves and shelves of them and,” - he paused to sigh - “there are probably even more waiting on the floor for me right now. The Wiseman’s not going to be happy about that.”

“I can’t,” the girl said tightly.

“What? Why not?”

The girl gave a small cough and pointed downwards at something within the pool. The Bookkeeper edged closer for a better look and followed her gaze.

The top half of the girl matched himself, the Wiseman, and the rest of the mortals described in his books, but her bottom half was scaled and finned like a fish.

“Oh,” the Bookkeeper said.

“Oh.”

“That _would_ make it rather difficult.” He sat next to her and examined the small circumference of the pool. If there was a bottom, he couldn’t see it. “Does it get bigger as you go down?”

“No,” the girl said, scrunching her nose. “Not really.”

“Isn’t that really small though?”

She stared at him flatly.

“Sorry,” the Bookkeeper said. “It was a stupid question.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t think about it too much. I spend a lot of time dreaming.”

“That’s your… _thing_?”

“Exactly. You keep your books. I dream my dreams.” She glanced up in thought. “Though they’re not really my dreams. Dreaming by myself is boring. That’s why I share them with others.”

“Hmm,” the Bookkeeper said. “So how long have been here?”

The Dreamer shrugged. “Always, I guess,” she said. “You?”

“Always as well… Although the Wiseman - he also lives in the house - was there before me… At least I think he was. He certainly _acts_ like he was.”

The Bookkeeper flinched, imagining the old man’s disapproving face when he finally returned. Hundreds of new books had to be cluttering the house’s floor by now. Perhaps thousands. He’d never catch up with the backlog…

“I really should go back to take care of them,” he said, springing up. “Not the Wiseman. My books. Don’t worry, I’ll bring a couple with me next time. You’re going to love-”

“Wait!” the Dreamer yelled, her voice cracking.

He looked back; he’d already reached the edge of the tree line in his eagerness to get home.

Her fingers were gripping the stone edges of her pool, the skin beneath her nails turning white from the pressure.

“Please…” she said, her eyes wide and lips trembling. “Please promise me that you _will_ come back.” Her face flushed and she looked away. “It’s just… it’s nice having someone to talk to. That’s all.”

Her intensity was slightly unnerving, but come to think of it, he hadn’t exactly seen anyone else in that pool of hers. Yes, the Wiseman was insufferable and he relished the peace and silence of the older man’s periodic absence, but - at the same time - the Bookkeeper couldn’t imagine a world without him. If there was no Wiseman and it was just him alone in the house with his books for eternity… would he even be himself anymore? Reading story after story with no one to talk to, no one to moan and complain about, no one to argue with…

The Dreamer was still rigidly clutching the sides of her pool. Alone.

The Bookkeeper smiled at her.

“I promise,” he said.


	11. The Tale of the Bookkeeper: Part Two

“…and so he became one of Ur-Nanshe’s trusted advisors and there he stayed until, at least, death overtook him.”

The Bookkeeper nodded to himself at yet another satisfying, tidy end and began to roll up the scroll.

“That was good. Read it again.”

He glanced up.

The Dreamer’s arms were crossed in front of her, resting on the edge of her pool. Her head lay tilted on top, her cheek pressed softly against them. As he stared at her she smiled back, gentle and lazy.

He frowned.

“But I just read it to you,” he said.

“So?”

“ _So,_ there isn’t much of a point in reading a story if you already know what will happen.”

“Didn’t you say you’d already read that one?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then why did you read it to me?”

“No, that’s-” the Bookkeeper caught himself before his voice snapped with irritation. “That’s different. There’s a difference between sharing a story with someone new and… and…”

The words caught in his throat as the Dreamer leaned back and clasped her hands in front her face. Her lower lip jutted forward in an captivating pout. He glowered back at her, retching at the thought of having to reread the same book for a _third_ time instead of something new, but…

Oh, it was impossible to resist.

The Bookkeeper sighed as he unrolled the scroll and began to read again. Halfway through the fourth sentence, his eyes flicked up. He caught sight of her broad smile, and his own lips quirked slightly in response.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so tedious after all.

He hadn’t even gotten past the first battle, however, when he noticed the Dreamer’s smile gradually sinking, lower and lower, before fading completely into an empty frown.

“What is it?” he asked.

The Dreamer flinched and then pushed herself backwards into the center of her pool.

“It’s nothing.” She smiled, tight and rigid. “Keep going. It’s just as good the second time.”

The Bookkeeper gave her a pointed look.

She broke first.

“It’s just…” She fiddled with her hands, staring up at the sky. “All those people in your books. They all have names.”

“Yes, and?”

“We don’t.”

He hadn’t expected that.

“Well,” the Bookkeeper said with a cough. “We have titles.”

“Titles aren’t real names and you know it.”

“Do we need names though?”

The Wiseman’s words danced on the tip of his tongue: _we are who we are_.

He swallowed them back down before they managed to escape. As if he’d ever willingly pass on a _syllable_ of that man’s sayings.

“I guess not…” the Dreamer whispered. “Haven’t you ever wanted one though?”

“Not really,” the Bookkeeper said automatically. As she started to sink low into the water, he hastily amended his statement, “but there’s no reason you shouldn’t have one if you want it!”

She stared at him.

“What?”

“That is” -the Bookkeeper cleared his throat again - “if you want a name, then get one.”

“You don’t just “get” a name,” the Dreamer muttered. She was practically submerged now, her chin just above the pool’s surface. “Names are… special. They have to be special.”

The Bookkeeper fought the urge to roll his eyes. Even though this whole concept of a “name” was obviously important to her, she seemed to be taking a reverse delight in making it rather impossible to be satisfied. _He_ didn’t see what was so special about names. There was no magic to them. No hidden properties that would affect the name-holder one way or the other. Ultimately, they were just words, picked from a list of-

An idea sparked.

The Bookkeeper opened the leather bag he’d brought with him to help carry his books and began rummaging through it.

“What are you doing?” the Dreamer asked. She emerged slightly from the water, curiosity overcoming her sullenness.

He withdrew all seven of them and held them out to her.

“Helping you get a name,” the Bookkeeper said. “Pick one.”

“What- Why…” She glowered at him. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Come on,” he said. “Humor me, just this bit. If you hate it, you don’t have to keep any of them.”

He nudged the books closer to her. She stared at them disdainfully for awhile, but then finally - with a lumbering sigh - began to pick. He tried not to wince as her wet fingers traced the fragile papyrus.

“This one,” she said, tapping definitively on the far right.

With a guarded smile, the Bookkeeper placed the others aside.

“I’m going to read off names,” he said, unrolling the one she’d chosen. “Stop me when I get to one you like.”

“ _That’s_ your big idea?” She let out a skeptical huff. “That’s not how names are picked.”

“Why not?” the Bookkeeper asked casually. He was already scanning the first couple of sentences. “Alright,” he said. “What about ‘Ishtar’?”

She crinkled her nose in distaste.

“You’re right. What was I thinking? ‘Ishtar’ doesn’t suit you at all. My mistake… Hmm… ‘Arbella’ perhaps?”

“No.”

“Inanna?”

“You’re wasting your time.”

The Dreamer, it turned out - whether she actually cared about the process or simply wanted to make things difficult for him - was ridiculously picky. From either a straight-out ‘no’ or a silent shake of the head, she tossed away name after name as the Bookkeeper made his way further and further down the scroll. After awhile, he stopped explicitly searching for specific names, instead muttering aloud whole sentences in an attempt to race through the story as quickly as possible. He was beginning to regret even thinking of this idea, let alone suggesting it to her.

“Wait,” the Dreamer suddenly said. “Repeat that sentence again.”

The Bookkeeper frowned as his eyes retraced what he’d just read.

“There weren’t any names in that one,” he said.

“I know, I just liked the sound of the words.”

He sighed in exasperation, but did so, having passed the point of caring enough to refuse.

“Serra,” she said. “I like Serra.”

He blinked in confusion. He’d never spoken such a word. His eyes swept over the sentence for a third time. “Where did you get…”

There.

In the middle of the text.

“You can’t pick that,” the Bookkeeper said. The offending cluster of syllables stuck out like a blister. He frowned at them.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not a name! It’s not even a full word! It’s the last part of one word and the first part of another and you’ve just smushed them together!” He shoved the scroll in front of her face as if she could actually read what was written on it.

“That’s your fault then for saying them so fast,” she said, pushing it aside.

“But…”

He was glaring at her now, his thoughts failing to piece together into coherent ideas.

Why couldn’t she see how ridiculous she was being!?

“What’s so wrong about it? It’s my name, isn’t it?” she said, jabbing a finger towards his chest. “That means it’s my choice. And weren’t you the one saying that if I wanted one so much, I should just _pick_ one?”

“Yes, but you can’t just pick a name that’s not actually a name!”

“Too bad.” She tossed her hair behind her shoulder with an errant flick. “Besides, it has to be a name because it’s mine now.”

The Bookkeeper continued to scowl. She was being absolutely childish. To claim that names were special and then turn around and make a mockery of the whole…

But then again, she did seem extremely pleased with her choice. She’d cheered completely up. And hadn’t that been the whole point of indulging her with this charade?

“Very well, you win,” he muttered.

“No! You can’t say it like that!”

The Bookkeeper raised a single, cynical eyebrow. She simply grinned in response.

“You have to say things with my name now!”

The Bookkeeper stared at her.

She propped her elbows up on the side of the pool in front of her and rested her chin on her upturned palms. Her eyes sparkled in tandem with the water as she hungrily awaited for him to use her new name.

He chuckled and leaned back in the tranquil grove.

“Very well,” he said. “You win. Serra.”

* * *

The cliff lay somewhere in the space between the waking and dreaming worlds. The Bookkeeper and Serra leaned back, their legs dangling insouciantly over its side as their hands pressed down against the midnight grasses behind them.

“What’s the story for that one?” Serra asked, pointing to a far-off constellation.

“Hmm… Lots.”

The Bookkeeper winced as Serra jabbed her elbow softly against his stomach.

“Haha,” she said. “Pick _one_.”

He stroked his chin, mentally flipping through all the legends that’d been written about that particular cluster.

“Alright,” he said. “There are some say it’s a woman. That star is her head, and her arms are draped down over there…”

The Bookkeeper waited for Serra to nod in understanding before he continued.

“Well, long long ago, there lived a man and a woman who were husband and wife. However, the king of the land was secretly in love with the woman. When war broke out with the neighboring kingdom, the man was enlisted to fight. When he and his wife parted, he promised her he’d surely-“

The Bookkeeper flinched as Serra’s head drooped against him. She nestled against his shoulder, gentle and warm.

“You were saying…?” Serra said.

He coughed, clearing his throat. His chest felt oddly tight, and he didn’t seem to be able to take full breaths. It was a bit bewildering.

Logically, he knew the cause had to be Serra’s sudden close proximity. Perhaps the girl was heavier than she felt and was somehow crushing his lungs? He probably should’ve told her to move… to get off… but then again, he didn’t want to be rude.

He kept his attention focused on the stars.

“The woman’s husband promised to return,” the Bookkeeper continued, “but the king had him sent to the front lines. The man fought bravely, but was ultimately killed by enemy forces. The king began to court the grieving woman, but she refused all his advances. Consumed with anger, he decided to imprison the woman in a tower until she agreed to marry him. Lost and alone, the woman turned to the gods to save her. They heard her prayers and set her into the night sky, so that she’d be able to mourn in peace for her lost love.”

Silence greeted him at the end of his story.

Normally Serra always had some sort of comment… a ‘thank you’ at the very least… or a plead for him to tell her another…

“Serra?”

She didn’t answer at first. A breeze picked its way past their clothes.

“I don’t like that story,” she finally said.

“Oh?” the Bookkeeper said, genuinely curious. “Why not?”

Serra was still silent.

The Bookkeeper grimaced to himself.

Why had he picked that story to tell her? Well, he knew why he’d picked it. It was one of the oldest stories with a properly long narrative and fit the general shape of the stars more than the others did… But he would’ve gladly picked another if he’d known that she’d-

Serra abruptly stood. She reached up towards the skies, her lips pressed together in concentration. With a wave her hands, a new cluster of stars began to glow, faint at first, but brighter and brighter until they overlapped seamlessly with the original constellation.

“There,” she said, triumphantly. “Now they’re together again.”

She smiled at the Bookkeeper, a wild defiance gleaming in her eyes. The Bookkeeper swallowed. It got stuck in his throat. He looked down at his hands, shadowed in the new starlight.

“Not every story can have a happy ending,” he said.

“Why not?!” she demanded.

“That’s not the way it works,” he said.

“They’re together now, aren’t they?” Serra said, jabbing her finger at the sky.

“Here maybe… but in the real world…”

“I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE REAL WORLD!”

The Bookkeeper’s eyes widened. His spine shivered as he stared up at her. Serra’s own eyes widened, her hands flying lightly to her mouth at what she’d just said.

“Sorry… I… I only meant say…”

The tension lifted from his muscles. He sighed.

The two of them were nothing more than servants. Servants beholden to a ‘real’ world that they’d never see… never touch… never know… Not really.

He extended a hand up towards her.

“I know what you meant,” he said.

Serra blushed. She glanced up at her stars for several moments, then took his hand and let him pull her back down beside him. She fidgeted for a bit before she returned to leaning against him.

“In everyone’s dreams, I see so many amazing things,” she said softly. “They make me happy at first, but then I get sad… because I know they’re only shadows of the real thing.”

“I know.”

Serra stretched her hands out over the cliff’s edge as forests and rivers materialized in the valley below. “I don’t want to just _see_ them,” she said. “I want to _be_ there. I want…” Her hands lingered, shaking, and then dropped to her sides. She sighed against him. “Promise me, something?”

“Hmm?”

“I know we can’t be together all the time,” she said. “We both have… other things. I know that. But even so… promise me that when you do leave, you’ll always come back. Eventually.”

“What?” 

The Bookkeeper’s head snapped up to fully look at Serra. Her face was pinched and withdrawn.

“I… don’t want to be like her.”

“Like wh…?” His eyes followed hers up to the jumbled cluster of stars. “Oh.”

A part of him wanted to give Serra an immediate ‘yes,’ but the promise was stuck in his chest. Always… was _always_. The logical part of him knew that ‘always’ was beyond his control. If he made a promise like that, it’d be a lie. But at the same time, he couldn’t imagine a future where they _never_ saw each other again. A long time… a _very_ long time maybe… but not forever.

“You won’t be alone,” he said.

His arm remained stiff for a moment, unwilling to listen to the commands he was trying to give it, and then he wrapped it around her back, his hand coming to rest gently against her opposite hip. He pulled her closer against his side.

“One day, you are going to be so sick at the sight of my face, you’ll wish that you’d never met me.”

“Mmm,” she hummed sleepily. “That sounds nice.”

* * *

 

The Bookkeeper hoisted himself back over the window and into the house. He’d barely made it four steps towards his book room when…

“Ahem.”

He froze, breath catching. The Bookkeeper could practically feel the stare as it pricked its way through the skin of his back. Slowly he let out a sigh of exasperation and turned to face the Wiseman. The old man didn’t speak; he merely judged in silence. The Bookkeeper stared back. He cleared his throat and adjusted the strap of his shoulder bag.

“Fine,” the Bookkeeper said, pushing past him. “You disapprove. I should feel bad. Conversation done.”

“If one exists to keep the books,” the Wiseman’s voice rumbled after him. “What will become of him when he is not capable of the task?”

The Bookkeeper pivoted at that, then strode towards the Wiseman. His tall frame loomed over the wizened man’s.

“Was that a threat?”

The Wiseman peered up at him, a hint of veiled acumen glinting through normally exhausted eyes.

“Knowledge is only a threat to the purposefully ignorant,” he said.

The Bookkeeper sucked in a sharp breath. It was a bluff. One, giant, twisted, mental bluff. The old man had no power. He was toying with him, nothing more, nothing less. Fashioning himself as a parent attempting to reprimand a child.

“I can make my own decisions,” the Bookkeeper said. “Just because I have a duty doesn’t mean that I have to be a slave to it. I won’t chain myself to this house forever and simply abandon Serra.”

“Serra?”

A slight warmth flushed through the Bookkeeper’s cheeks, but he kept his face blank. It wasn’t as though the Dreamer’s new name was intended to be a secret or anything. It was just a word. Not even a word, just a collection of syllables. However, the way the Wiseman’s eyebrow was currently arched was making him feel rather childish about the fact that it even existed.

“What I meant,” the Bookkeeper said, glancing past the topic, “is that I’m more than perfectly capable of managing my own affairs.”

“Hmm… he who believes most knows least.”

The Bookkeeper could only scowl as the Wiseman turned and shuffled off. He was tempted to shout after him, get in the last word, but that would be playing straight into the old man’s gnarled hands.

Last word. Ha! As if the Wiseman would ever concede a verbal battle.

With a short irritated snort, the Bookkeeper stormed off towards his book room.

He slung his bag off his shoulder as he made his way through the house’s corridors, already mentally re-shelving the books he’d taken with him. He’d been gone slightly longer than usual this time and shuddered at the inevitable backlog.

Maybe the Wiseman had a point…

No.

The Wiseman was a fool. If the old man wanted to wander the claustrophobic corridors of the house all day, content to spend eternity with just himself and his mind, he was more than welcome to. The Bookkeeper never would.

And what could the Wiseman do? Really? Seal the window? He’d like to see the old man try and use his wrinkled, boney fingersto lift stones and wooden planks as big as his head. The two were at an idealogical stalemate - nothing more, nothing less - and the Bookkeeper didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

The Bookkeeper opened the door to his book room.

A wave of scrolls poured out, knocking him off balance as they clattered around his feet. The room ahead was buried in a sea of white papyrus and wooden rollers.

Impossible. For so many to have been written in… He hadn’t been away _that_ long!

The Bookkeeper automatically picked up the scrolls by his feet, but that only served to create room for others to topple down and take their place.

He scowled at them.

It was impossible to shove his way past the door frame, let alone make it to his shelves. Not that all of the new arrivals would fit on his existing shelves even if he was able to place them there.

He need another room… _multiple_ rooms…

The Bookkeeper glanced around the barren corridor and spotted another door he’d never seen before. He sullenly glared at it.

Although the house’s tendency of providing things when (and _only_ when) they became necessary was helpful in this particular instance, it still annoyed him. Still, it wasn’t as though he’d make any progress by refusing the extra space.

He grabbed an armful of scrolls and got to work.

The first room filled up soon enough. The Bookkeeper spent several moments silently admiring the packed shelves and then promptly tore half the books off again.

For as long as he’d existed, he’d been organizing everything by title. Up until now it had seemed the most logical and straight-forward thing to sort by. But it was becoming painfully clear that he needed to switch to a different method. And soon. If he ever had to access half his books again, he’d never be able to re-locate them.

He need to find something broader, more generalized…

Subject perhaps? Or type of story? No. Type of content. Not all of his books were stories after all.

He cursed to himself as he yanked open a scroll and began speeding through its contents.

Of course, the new method would require vastly more work per book. More work meant more time which meant more backlog… but if he didn’t make the switch now, he’d end up facing a much bigger time sink later.

As soon as he’d scanned the information he needed, he quickly rolled the first scroll back together and shoved it onto its new, appropriate shelf. The faster he could get all of this done, the faster he could return to Serra.

Serra.

He raced through all the remaining scrolls, nearly snapping the papyrus as he opened them at times, and then rushed back to the original room. The Bookkeeper bit back a groan as the books poured out into the hallway once more. Staring at them wouldn’t make them disappear though, so he glumly took yet another armful and returned to work.

The Bookkeeper lost track of how long he spent moving between rooms, shelving scrolls, running out of space, opening doors to new rooms… Every single book required the same amount of time. He had to scan through its contents, categorize it correctly, and shelve it with its proper brethren.

Each time he thought he’d made a sizable dent, new works appeared.

He was in the middle of creating a completely new section for the increasingly wide-spread techniques of glass making when a flicker of movement caught his eye. He looked up from the current book he was shelving to see the Wiseman laboriously plodding along a nearby aisle.

Not again…

As the old man reached the end, his head lifted and met the Bookkeeper’s eyes. He stared again in silence, always in silence, and gave the Bookkeeper a single nod before his head drooped back to his chest and he continued on his way.

The Bookkeeper stared after him, brushing a strand of hair away as it fell over his eyes.

His hand froze.

He reached his hand further up and slowly measured the length of his hair from root to tip with his fingers. He plucked one out.

Stared at it.

Let it fall to the floor where it coiled, pale against the dark stone.

The Bookkeeper placed the book he’d been holding onto the shelf and backed away, trying to ignore the sinking feeling swirling at the bottom of his stomach. He took in - for the very first time - the extent of the work that he’d completed.

The entire shelf next to him was full, as were the shelves beside it… the shelves in front of it… the shelves behind it… He was standing in an entire room that he barely remembered working on. Or rather… The more he thought back, the more the memories returned, but that wasn’t giving him the least bit of comfort. He hadn’t been thinking; he’d just being working. Repeating the same motions, the same tasks, over and over and over again…

His feet carried him down the same aisle that the Wiseman had left through and into another room. It too was stacked from the floor to ceiling with books he didn’t remember shelving. He wandered in silent awe through that room and into a third… and then a fourth… and then a fifth and sixth after that…

He had created an entire library without even realizing.

The Bookkeeper sunk down against the end of the nearest aisle and clutched the sides of his head. All around his feet, cluttering the floor, lay more and more books. He bit back a scream. He’d wasted all this time and _still_ had just as much work left as when he’d started. Perhaps more. At this rate, he’d never be able to make enough progress to visit Ser-

Serra.

She was waiting for him. Alone. His promise…

The Bookkeeper pushed himself to his feet.

He had to return and see her, even if it was just for a moment. The Wiseman could yell at him again later.

His bag was, oddly, easy enough to relocate. He found it hanging on a hook by one of the nearby doors. He grabbed it and started piling in scroll after scroll. They were new ones, straight off the ground. New stories for the two of them. As he bent over, a strange rectangular object in the corner of the room caught his eye.

Frowning slightly, he walked over and picked it up for a closer look.

The thing was a book, one long sheet of papyrus like the rest of his books, but its text was written in blocked chunks and folded back and forth accordingly. The Bookkeeper puzzled at the strangeness of it for awhile before conceding that the new format did seem rather convenient. It would certainly make it easier to skip to specific passages.

He slipped it into his bag and continued on his way. The books on the floor seemed to multiply as he walked, causing him to stumble several times.

At the doorframe, he hesitated. He looked back across the room and grimaced. True, the shelves were orderly, but the ground was an absolute mess. And he was just looking at one room; he didn’t want to _think_ about the state of the books in the rest of the house.

He’d never left while there was still so much work to be done. If he didn’t get back to work now, it’d be even worse when he returned. Perhaps if he just put a couple more away…

But that was just it.

The influx of books was only going to keep increasing. Gone were the days of making progress. He could work for the rest of eternity and things would still be worse when he returned. Whoever had put him here…

It was a sick joke.

He’d been saddled with an impossible, eternal task. And what was he expected to do? Simply accept it?

Well…

If someone had wanted an obedient, diligent slave, then they really ought to have known better than to have picked him.

The Bookkeeper hoisted his bag up onto his shoulder and fled.

* * *

“Serra!”

The Bookkeeper raced through the trees, barely feeling the sting as branch after branch scratched the sides of his face. He skidded down the hill and let his momentum carry him towards the familiar clearing and its pool.

It was empty.

His stomach churned. He tried not to think about what that could mean.

“Serra! It’s me!”

He dumped his bag at side of the pool and leaned over its surface, hands bracing himself on either side. His lips twisted in guilt as he stared into the depths of the water. The darkness masked any hint of a bottom.

She’d left him.

No. That was a stupid thought. It was impossible for her to leave her pool.

Or was it? The Bookkeeper still had no idea how much time had passed. Any number of things could have happened.

What if she was so angry with him that she never wanted to see him again?

He was terrible. Absolutely terrible. Terrible, terri-

The surface of the water exploded, spraying the air with a cascade of droplets.

Serra was in front of him, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck. The Bookkeeper inhaled sharply and promptly lost his grip on the sides of the pool as she dragged him in with her. He hit the water and immediately gasped for air. His legs kicked uselessly in the foreign liquid. He was sinking into the water, into Serra’s unrelenting grasp as she fastened herself to the front of his body and refused to let go.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she murmured into the side of his neck.

He stiffened at that.

Serra…

And then promptly began to flounder again. He heard her utter a swift apology and felt himself being pushed up towards the sides of the pool. His hands reached out over soft grass, and he half-pulled, half-crawled his way back to safety. He coughed as he trembled on all fours.

“Idiot,” he finally managed. He smirked at her frightened face and ran a hand through his lengthened hair. “Didn’t you remember my promise? I’ll always come back.”

Serra stared at him, blinking. Then her hands lightly gripped the edge of pool in front of her and she smiled.

“Thank you,” she said. She frowned. “Your hair is longer.”

“Oh, I…” He coughed again. “Actually, you see, I got… That is, I didn’t realize how much time had passed until…”

Every explanation he could think of felt completely inadequate.

“That’s okay,” Serra said. She lowered her head slightly, biting her lip, and then glanced up at him again with a slightly more hesitant smile. “I like the way it looks.”

The Bookkeeper felt his face growing warm.

“That reminds me,” he said quickly. He turned away and started rummaging through his bag. “I brought some new stories. Also… this.”

He held out the rectangular tome from earlier for her to examine. Serra stared at it for a moment before taking it from his hands. Her eyes lit up with curiosity as she unfolded the different pages.

“What is it?” she asked, holding it one way before squinting and turning it the other.

“A book of course.”

Serra wrinkled her nose as she glanced back at him.

“But those are books,” she said, pointing to the other scrolls sticking out of his bag.

The Bookkeeper looked at the book in her hands. He looked at the books in his bag. He crossed his arms. From the moment he’d seen rectangular book, it’d been obvious that - despite the different appearance - it was still a ‘book.’ They both were. But how to explain that to Serra?

“I think,” he finally said, “that a ‘book’ is less about how it’s put together and more about what’s inside.”

Serra remained quiet, face calm in thought as she continued to examine his newest book. Then she passed it back to the Bookkeeper.

“Read it to me,” she said.

He grinned.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

 

“What do you hope to gain from this?”

The Bookkeeper scowled. He was perched on the windowsill, another new collection of books shoved into his bag.

“Nothing you’d understand,” he muttered. He glanced at the Wiseman out of the corner of his eye. “Not that you’ve ever approved. Not that I’ve ever _needed_ your approval.”

He turned, letting his legs dangle out over the free side.

“A neglected task today returns tomorrow with seven others at its back.”

The Bookkeeper’s hands gripped the windowsill. He would punch through the stone if he could.

Each time he returned to the house, he returned to more and more books cluttering the floors. Each time it became easier to fall away from his conscious mind. He was losing all sense of time, all sense of what was there and now. The one thing still holding him together was Serra: the sound of her laughter, the sweet scent of her hair as she leaned against him, the rush of warmth that spread through him when she smiled…

To lose her would be to lose himself.

Slowly, the Bookkeeper turned back around and faced the Wiseman.

“Why do you even pretend to care?” he demanded in clipped tones. “You talk about how this needs work and that needs work, but when have you ever stopped and worked on a single thing in your life? Your mutterings don’t count, by the way.”

“I am what I am,” the Wiseman said, “as you are what you are.”

“Oh _please_ …” The Bookkeeper rolled his eyes. “That means nothing and you know it.”

Ignoring the voice that told him to just _go_ , he hopped off the window and back into the house. He crossed his arms as he stared down at the Wiseman. Then the Bookkeeper shoved him, both quashing and reveling in the sickening thrill that coursed through him as he watched the old man stumble back.

“On and on, you wrap everything up in riddles but you never answer one simple question: why,” the Bookkeeper said. “ _Why_ I am I what I am? _Why_ do I have to stay here? And _why_ does it have to be with you of all people!?” 

The Wiseman’s eyes held no animosity. They merely looked out at the Bookkeeper, glazed and tired, reflecting the world and revealing nothing of the mind beyond.

It made the Bookkeeper want to shove him a second time.

Harder.

Against the wall.

“When a fawn ignores its mother’s warnings,” the Wiseman said, “the wolf takes it for a meal. If you do not keep the books-”

The Bookkeeper snapped.

With a slender hand, he withdrew one of the scrolls from his bag. It was rather unremarkable, neither thick nor thin, neither aged nor crisply pressed. His fingers opened it delicately, letting it unfurl to its full length before the Wiseman’s eyes.

And then he calmly began to tear it in half.

“I don’t _care_ about the books,” he said.

Horror crept into the lines across the old man’s face, the first genuine reaction the Bookkeeper had drawn from him in a long time. With an empty smile, the Bookkeeper pulled out a second scroll. He stared at the object in his hands.

“In fact, I hate the books,” - his fingers shredded apart the papyrus - “I hate this house,” - the pieces were fluttering to the ground, thicker and thicker - “and I hate _you_.”

Only a snippet of text was still connected to the wooden roller at the top. He dropped the entire thing, soaking in the echo as it clattered against the stone floor.

It faded slowly, leaving a chasmal silence in its wake.

“Great anger,” the Wiseman finally murmured, “is more destructive than the sword.”

The Bookkeeper stared at him for several moments and then broke down laughing.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Simply wonderful. Do you care to know what’s _truly_ destructive? A life that’s not even a life! We are _slaves_ to this existence and you don’t even-” The Bookkeeper caught himself as he realized it’d be - and always had been - pointless to argue with the old man. “None of that matters though,” he said, stiffly. “Because I’ve found my reason for life, my _true_ life, and _nothing_ is going to take her away from me.”

The Wiseman sighed.

“If you only knew… and I only could…”

He turned and began to shuffle off. Again.

The Bookkeeper shot him a murderous glare, then grabbed the sides of the window, ready to pull himself up and escape. Again.

He was _not_ looking forward to coming back this time. Not that he’d ever looked forward to coming…

He paused.

Why did he have to come back?

He stepped back from the window and looked around.

The house was barren. Oppressive. It always had been. The air was bitter and dry and the walls felt like a tomb. Scattered across the floor lay the torn snippets of the ruined book.

An insane idea was taking root in his mind. But then again… was it really that insane? After all, he’d never _asked_ for this.

He’d never asked for any of this.

The Bookkeeper made his way back to the nearest room of his library. He carelessly tossed the remaining books from his bag onto the floor and began his new selection from scratch.

How many books had he shelved now? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? How many could fit in his bag? Sixteen? Twenty?

Of the books he picked, one or two were his favorites. The rest were hers. He stuffed and crammed and stuffed again until the bag’s seams threatened to rip. When he tied its strings and lifted it up, it almost swung him off balance, carrying him to the ground. After a couple of attempts, he managed to stabilize himself and slowly made his way back towards the corridor with heavy, plodding steps.

The Bookkeeper couldn’t imagine constantly going back and forth from the house to the pool with a bag this heavy, but it would do for this.

For one final trip.


	12. The Tale of the Bookkeeper: Part Three

The clearing was awash in the noon sunshine, just a hint of a breeze curling through the trees. The Bookkeeper lay sprawled out in grass, only half-aware as he read his latest book out loud to both himself and Serra.

Everything was perfect.

Finally he reached the end and looked up to smile at his companion. Her face was somber and withdrawn.

“What’s wrong,” he immediately said.

“I… Oh, it’s nothing,” she said with a sigh. “Just… It feels like you’ve been here longer than normal. That is, usually we’ve said goodbye by now.”

The Bookkeeper blinked at her.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No!” she said quickly. She blushed at him from beneath her lashes and then smiled. “Far from it. It’s just different, that’s all. A kind of nice different. Though… I’m worried.”

“Worried?” he said with a small scoff. “Worried about what?”

“Well, you’re the Bookkeeper,” she said simply. “I know how much you care about your books. They’re a part of you, just like my dreams are a part of me.”

The Bookkeeper flinched. He could feel the papyrus tearing all over again, helpless beneath his fingers.

“They’ll be fine,” he said, not meeting Serra’s eyes as he closed the book.

“You’re sure?”

The Wiseman stood before him in his thoughts, gazing down at him with his perpetual disapproving stare…

No.

He wouldn’t let that old man continue to cast gloom over everything when he wasn’t even _there_.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” the Bookkeeper muttered. His voice bordered on a snarl, and he quickly glanced at Serra, an apology hovering on the tip of his tongue incase he’d hurt her.

She wasn’t looking at him though. Her fingers quested over the grass, plucking at random blades.

“I don’t know…” she mumbled. Slowly she looked up and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m probably just being silly.”

She was so close and still entire realms away. He reached out, stretching, and grabbed hold of her hand. It was warm, warmer than him, warmer than anything in that old, ancient house.

Serra looked at him with wide eyes.

“I’ll go back,” he lied. “Just not right now. I… need some more time.”

“Alright,” she said.

“Alright,” the Bookkeeper repeated.

He pulled his hands from hers and returned the book that he’d just finished to his bag. “Now,” he said as he casually rummaged through the few unread books he had left. “Do you want me to read you another? Or do you want to try yourself?”

He’d finally started trying to teach Serra despite both the difficulty and her reluctance.

She crossed her arms with a huff.

“I don’t know why you’re putting so much effort into it when I’ll never be as good as you,” she said. “Whenever you read, the story itself comes to life! I can barely pronounce the letters.”

Despite her obvious distress, the Bookkeeper preened at the compliment.

“You’ll never know how good you’ll get if you don’t practice,” he said in a lilting sing-song voice.

Serra continued to pout at him, her lips pressed tight together beneath furrowed brows.

“Oh, fine,” she finally said, shoulders collapsing with an exasperated sigh. “If you’re going to make me do it though, I want to least practice with that story I like. You know, the one about the Mitanni princesses.” 

The Bookkeeper grinned.

“Your wish is my command,” he said.

It didn’t take him too long to pull out the respective book. Flipping gracefully through its pages, he found the part they’d last left off at and placed it in front of Serra on the edge of her pool. He leaned in close to her, smiling as she began to squint and scowl at the text, her lips slowly sounding out each word with his occasional correction.

* * *

She was tracking him through a large forest of shifting-colored leaves, the trees growing closer and closer together until they formed the walls of a great maze. The Bookkeeper kept his attention alert, shifting always at the slightest of noises.

A crack of a fallen branch echoed in the silence.

He immediately spun and hid himself in a nook between two particularly large roots. His lungs inhaled deeply, his chest pounding with adrenaline as she sprinted directly past. He forced his mind to clear. Numbers drifted through his head, counting one, two, three… ten… twenty… Slowly, he re-emerged into the empty path and began to creep away in the other direction.

“Got you!”

A pair of arms circled around his waist, tackling him towards the forest floor. The trees blurred and then shattered, transforming into an open field smothered in flowers. They hit the ground and continued tumbling down the hill, scattering petals in their wake. He was rolling, around and around again, until both the world and his own head spun incomprehensibly together.

He finally came to a stop lying on his back, staring up at Serra as she grinned at him from above. She burst out into giddy laughter, and he found himself doing the same. As he pushed her off of him with one hand, she collapsed next to him in the flowers. They both continued to lay there with the occasional giggle as they stared up at the blue sky tinged with pink.

“So that makes five wins for me and none for you,” she finally said. “Care to try again?”

The Bookkeeper groaned.

“What, so you can make it six wins for you?”

“Face it,” she said. “When it comes you and me with nothing else between us, I will _always_ win.”

He snorted.

“What? Accepting it just like that?” Serra said. “Not the slightest protest?”

“None whatsoever,” he said. “Because you’re absolutely right.”

He reached out to snake his arm around her waist and pull her towards him, but she pushed it away. She frowned at him petulantly.

“Are you saying you’re _letting_ me win?”

“Quite the opposite, my dear Dreamer,” he said with an affronted sniff. “In fact, if anything, I’d have to say that you-“

Pain lanced through his chest.

The Bookkeeper gasped. He curled in against himself, his hands pressed tightly against his ribs as if that would help anything.

“What’s wrong?!” Serra said above him, her voice tight and panicked.

“It’s nothing,” he quickly bit out. Already the initial pangs were starting to fade. He began to sit up and tried to ignore her terror-stricken eyes. “Something just bizarre… temporary. Don’t worry, I’m-”

His words were choked off by another stab of pain. He reached out his arms to steady himself, but they buckled. He was falling towards the crushed flowers… 

Falling…

* * *

The world was black, his chest crippled. It hurt to breathe. There was a pounding in his head, a pounding in his blood… All around him there was a singular voice. A familiar voice, shouting over and over again the same word. A familiar pair of hands were grabbing his arms, pulling him…

“Serra?”

He blinked, the world clearing enough for him to make out her tear-streaked face in front of him. Her hands were pressed gently, but firmly, on either side of his head.

“You disappeared from the dream but didn’t wake up,” she said with a sniff, her nose red and splotchy. “I didn’t know if you’d… if you’d… What happened?”

“I don’t…” He grit his teeth. Talking brought with it a new type of pain. “I don’t know.”

“Something’s not right. You need help,” Serra said. Her fingers pressed deeper against his skin. “I can only… I can’t… You need…”

Another spasm racked his chest, sharper than anything in the dream world had been. As he doubled over, the Bookkeeper tried to figure what was happening… _why_ it was happening…

He’d read about diseases, naturally, of various curses and illness and plagues. It was a very mortal thing, to get sick and feel pain.

He wasn’t mortal.

What he needed was someone who knew more than he did, who knew…

The Wiseman.

He snarled out a curse, and Serra flinched back, hands snapping to her sides.

“That bastard!” he hissed. “He’s behind this somehow! He’s doing it to get back at me.”

“Wait, who?” Serra said. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t have to,” the Bookkeeper said. He twisted away from Serra to face the direction that he knew the house was waiting. “I’m going to find that old man and settle this once and for all.”

* * *

The Bookkeeper barely managed to make it back through the window, collapsing over onto the floor as he was pulling himself over the frame. Pain blossomed in his shoulder where he hit, mixing at odds with the general ache in the rest of him. He half-pushed, half-pulled himself up to his feet with the help of the nearby wall.

The entire hallway was so much drabber than he remembered, all of its shades blending into one forgettable tan. It made him sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted be back at the pool with its soft grass and gentle breeze and bright sun. With Serra.

The Wiseman was here though, and the Bookkeeper couldn’t leave until he’d confronted the man.

Leaning against the wall for support, he stumbled down the hallway towards the nearest door. The man was somewhere in the house. He’d find him eventually, even if he had to travel door by door to do so.

One of his old library rooms was waiting for him on the other side. The Bookkeeper gazed up at its shelves as he walked along them, trying to calculate a brief mental count of the books on them, a general estimate even, but there were simply too many. He bit back a sigh, his heart caving in a muddy swirl of regret and irritation.

In the end though, he didn’t regret leaving. He was more than just a bookkeeper, was more than, well… _this_.

As he neared the end of aisle, a new sensation forced its way up past his lungs. He fought against it for a brief few moments and then stumbled back in a coughing fit, his chest racked with spasms. The world titled. He reached out at a bookshelf for support and crashed into it instead. The two knocked over, books tumbling everywhere.

The Bookkeeper groaned, his muscles aching as he tried and failed to push himself up from the clutter.

He needed to stand up. He needed to go on…

Damn!

If only the old man fought fairly, face to face, instead of resorting to whatever spineless curse this was.

“What have you done to my books!” an unfamiliar voice snapped.

The Bookkeeper slowly arched his neck up. He blinked dizzily, vaguely making out the shape of a woman standing in front of him. She had short blonde hair and was dressed in loose, white garments very similar to his own. Her hands rested tersely on her hips as she glared down at him.

His mind was still trying to register the strange woman’s existence in the house when she yanked him away by the arm from the fallen bookshelf. After making a few tut-tutting sounds, she promptly uprighted it and began re-shelving the books.

“I can’t believe it! All this work, and I have to do it again!” she yelled without looking at him. “Are you this stupid on purpose?!”

He was still confused. The pain in his chest didn’t help. Both it and his head pounded, barely holding onto reality.

“Who are you?” he managed to cough.

The woman paused in her work, and then looked back at him with an eyebrow raised. “I’m the Bookkeeper,” she said. “Obviously.”

The Bookkeeper blinked at her.

“No, you’re not,” he said. “That’s who I am.”

“Really?”

The Bookkeeper nodded.

“Well,” the woman said simply. “Between you and me, it seems like _I’m_ the only one doing the actual bookkeeping around here. So unless you have anything to contribute, please leave me alone. Some of us have actual _work_ to do.”

He stared at her, lost for words, as the woman turned back around and resumed her work. She seemed to be perfectly fine ignoring him, shelving an entire row before moving on to the row above that, and then the row above that… all in perfect silence.

And then he heard a wheezing cough behind him.

“So you’ve come back,” the Wiseman’s voice said.

The Bookkeeper’s fists curled together.

That man was behind this somehow. He was behind _everything_. A cowardly fossil, tormenting the Bookkeeper simply because he’d dared to have even the smallest taste of freedom.

The Bookkeeper turned to lunge at the Wiseman, to push him over, drag him to the ground and curl his fingers around the man’s shriveled throat. It would be so easy, so simple and final and then he’d be free to be with Serra again.

Forever.

Despite his mind yelling at him to get up, the Bookkeeper remained on the floor, his arms barely strong enough to push himself up onto his elbows. The Wiseman stared down at him, slowly shaking his head.

“Why are you doing this?” the Bookkeeper said, hating the way his voice almost cracked.

“Me?” the Wiseman asked incredulously. “You might as well ask the river why the sky rains. This,” - he nodded at the woman who hadn’t turned around from shelving books - “is all of your own doing.”

“I don’t…”

“We are who we are,” the Wiseman intoned. “If a Bookkeeper is the one who keeps the books, then who does he become when he stops? Does he change into something new? Or does he stop existing entirely?”

The Bookkeeper stared at him.

“W- What are you saying?”

“I, personally, had hoped for the former, naive as it may have been,” the Wiseman said. “However, it appears that you have been dealt the hand of the latter.”

No, no, no… He was suffering from just a simple, little curse. It was the Wiseman cursing him and all he had to do to recover was convince the old man to stop. By force, if necessary, but still within his power to do. Everything else was a trick to confuse the Bookkeeper. Just a trick.

So why were the Wiseman’s words affecting him like this?

“I did try to warn you,” the Wiseman continued. “The young in spring rarely care to hear the bitter wisdom of winters past.”

He was being replaced. He’d abandoned his books, and the world was replacing him. More than replacing him, destroying him. Destroying him like a spoiled child, just because he’d refused to do things its way.

“You’re lying,” he said.

“Hmm… perhaps,” the Wiseman said. “Perhaps it’s a coincidence that you are lying here on the floor while _she_ now exists to do the work you abandoned.”

The Bookkeeper’s mind was racing, circling away from and then back to the same thoughts, again and again and again… and the Wiseman, standing safely out of reach…

“You knew…” he whispered. “You knew and you still let me leave.”

“A warning ignored is not a warning never given.”

“That! That right there!” the Bookkeeper yelled. “ _That_ is not a warning. A warning would’ve been actually _telling_ me that I would die! Not a bunch of riddles obscurely worded for your own self-righteous interest!”

He winced as the pain flared through him again.

“Death is a mortal construct. For mortals,” the Wiseman said calmly. “It does not exist for us.”

“Then what…”

“As caretakers of Thought and Reason, we have two states of being: existence or oblivion. Compared with death,” - the old man sighed - “it is a far more… final fate, I’m afraid.”

Fire blazed through his skin, coiled around his bones as he pushed himself up, lunging at the Wiseman. His fingers reached out, their joints stretching, and managed to brush briefly against the old man’s robes before the Wiseman side-stepped easily away.

“Your distress is understandable,” he said. “I do regret that we must part like this. However, the time has come to say farewell.”

With a final nod, the Wiseman shuffled off. Shuffled off like he had thousands of other times. Like his one and only companion wasn’t about to fade from existence.

The Bookkeeper let out a howl of frustration as he slammed his fists against the floor’s stone.

He heard a small cough and glanced up to see the new Bookkeeper pointedly stepping over him on the way to shelve more books. He tried to reach out at her as well, to somehow grab the life from her and pull it back into himself, but she was gone before his mind could order his body to do so. Not that he’d have the energy or ability to do anything, even if he _was_ able to catch her…

The Bookkeeper sat abandoned on the floor of a library that was no longer his.

* * *

Getting back through the forest was a torment in and of itself. The Bookkeeper stumbled from tree trunk to tree trunk at a glacial pace. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, harder to think, harder to keep moving. His foot snagged on a root, and he fell down the last portion of the hill, sliding against the dirt into the clearing. Before he could push himself up, he was wracked by another coughing spasm.

His lungs hurt. His chest hurt. His head hurt. He just wanted to lie down, never get up, and sink into…

“Bookkeeper?”

He blearily cracked open his eyes.

She was there, a blur of pale skin and dark hair, in the center of clearing. So close… He could find the strength to close that remaining distance. He could do that much for her.

As the Bookkeeper started to push himself up, he froze. He stared at his hands. The tips of his fingers were disappearing, fading. He could see through them to the grass on the other side.

He inhaled deeply. After all, he’d been told this was going to happen. There was nothing he could do about it now. Nothing but give _her_ all his remaining moments.

He forced himself to keep moving, collapsing only once he’d reached the side of the pool. He felt her clutch at his hands, attempt to pull him closer.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?” Serra said, her voice both laced with panic and soothing at the same time. “You’ve done nothing to-”

“I won’t be able to keep my promise.”

He felt her hands tighten.

“What?”

With a groan, he shifted to face her. He slipped his hands from hers and held them up for her to see. Her gasp of horror was visible behind his translucent fingers.

“No…” she breathed. “No no no no no…”

“I’m sorry,” he said as his eyes drifted slowly shut, “but it looks like you won’t be getting sick of me after-“

“You can’t leave me!” Serra shouted. She desperately grabbed his wrists, her nails digging into his skin and shocking him awake. “You promised!”

“It’s not like I wanted…” He sighed. “There’s a new Bookkeeper now. Maybe she’ll be like me and get restless one day. She can come visit you in my place. You can start… all this, all over again.”

“I don’t want her! I want you!”

The Bookkeeper felt himself chuckling despite himself. “Flattered,” he said with a weak grin. “But I think it’s too late for that now.”

Serra stared at him.

“I won’t let you leave,” she said.

He started to make another joke, but the intense glimmer in her eyes made him pause. Slowly, Serra reached forward and dipped her fingers through his vanishing ones, kindling an odd feeling of nothingness and warmth at the same time. She drew him and his hands closer.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Saving you. Somehow.”

He wanted to ask her how… to ask _why_ she was even wasting the effort, but his breath was wrenched apart by another series of coughs. He could feel parts of himself flaking off, not just his body but pieces of his soul. His mind was fracturing, rangy and brittle. He could see a wooden spool whirling and whirling in the wrong direction. Its thread was unraveling too quickly…

Vanishing forever…

A flare of heat seared through him.

The Bookkeeper’s head snapped up.

Serra’s eyes were closed, her lips lifted in a slight hum. The rest of her face was smooth and unlined, the fear and horror from before wiped away as if they’d been nothing more than a product of one of her dreams. She had placed both of his hands over her chest… no, had pulled them _into_ her, reaching past her skin to touch her heart.

He tried to pull away, but she held firm onto his wrists.

“Stop it,” he said.

“No.”

His stomach clenched with a sickening feeling. If he’d learned anything from his pitiful existence, it was that the world was not a benevolent one. To exist was to work, and to work was to exist. When one thing faded, another appeared to take its place. There was a cruel practicality to it… a sharp duality… a never-ending game of balance. Already the clearing was looking too bright out of the corner of his eyes, the leaves at the tree line garish in their intensity.

Whatever she was doing to him would end up doing the opposite to her.

“Serra, I don’t want to hurt you…”

“Too late for that!” she lashed out, her eyes snapping open. “I already am!”

The warmth continued to spread out from her heart, spiraling up through his arms and into his own chest. It wrapped itself around him, coating his bones and sinking into his veins.

Serra suddenly stiffened and began to cough herself. The Bookkeeper took advantage of her brief distraction to tear his hands away from her. He curled them to his chest and then slowly began to flex his fingers. They had returned in full feeling and opacity. As he stared at them in horror, he felt Serra snatch his wrists again. He tried to yank them back, but she held on tight through her coughs.

“You’re going to kill yourself!” he yelled.

Her head was bowed, her lungs rattling as she sucked in a shuddering breath.

This was wrong. This was all _wrong_.

Her eyes flicked up at him, locking his gaze with her own.

“So be it,” she said.

The Bookkeeper stared at Serra in horror as she pulled his hands even closer to her and then bent her head to brush her lips against his knuckles. It was soft and chaste, and she lingered, trembling. Everything was blazing white around them, burning away like a half-realized dream.

She looked up at him, her brown eyes the only solid thing left in existence.

“I love you,” she whispered.

The world fell down.

* * *

He groaned. His head felt cottony, stuffed with a muffled blankness that crammed out all other feeling. His pain from before had vanished. Gradually he became aware of his hands, reaching mindlessly out to the grass. He stared at them, detached.

He had no idea how much time passed before he finally sat back. The clearing looked completely the same as it had before. Beneath him grew the same grass, on all sides of him rose the same trees, and in the center lay the same pool.

No.

Not the same pool. It was empty of her.

He ground his teeth together, biting back a scream.

None of this was supposed to have happened! He was the one who…

_He_ had been the one who’d deserted his work. Who’d deserved to be punished. Who’d given up everything. And for what? So that he could spend every moment of the rest of his existence with her? So that he wouldn’t be alone?

And now he was here. A different life. The same isolation.

It wasn’t fair.

He stared blankly ahead, his neck stiff and unmoving, until he felt his eyes start to droop. Even then he’d didn’t move, but remained where he was and let the world of the dream wrap itself around him.

It was another forest.

She’d always had an inexplicable thing for forests. Summer was in full force, the trees bowing under the weight of their fruit as insects called to each other in the night. Gradually, though, the songs quieted. The ever-pervasive green slowly fell away beneath an onslaught of yellows and reds and browns, and then the color vanished entirely.

Up above, the sun set and didn’t return. Clouds gathered and coated the everything in a blanket of untouched white.

He inhaled slowly, then let it all go, watching as his breath condensed in tiny swirls.

The world was cold. Dead.

And then a spot of green appeared in the corner of his eye.

Through the thick of the snow, a single shoot of grass had sprung up. As he stared at it, another joined it. Then another after that.

Buds were beginning to appear on the trees, weak and delicate at first, but quickly growing in size and vitality. Before he could yell at them to stay dead, they burst into flowers. Across the ground, the snow melted.

Spring returned.

He growled in anger.

This was her dream. It was _her_ dream, and they were _her_ trees and _her_ flowers and they had the _presumption_ to die and come back without her! With a snarl he grabbed one of the flowers that had begun to bloom near him and ripped it from the ground. The surrounding flowers died outwards in spidery, radiating tendrils.

This world was wrong. It was all too cheerful. Too alive.

He reached forward and the trees wilted. The spring leaves fell, one by one, greyed and brittle. Their branches twisted thinner and thinner until the ends began to fade, dissolving into the wind in puffs of ash. Even the rocks collapsed in upon themselves in a shower of dust.

He blinked…

And was back in the clearing, peaceful and green and verdant as ever.

He looked down. His hands were resting against the grass.

The patches surrounding them were dry and brown.

Well.

That was new.

He briefly grazed his hand over an unaffected patch to no effect. He did it again, this time channeling all of his helpless frustration into a curse for its death. The blades curled in against themselves, browning as his fingertips ghosted over their length.

He snatched his hand back.

This power… had Serra ever known that she-

He struggled past a lump in his throat.

She was gone. Gone, gone, gone and it was all his fault.

It was hard to breathe again. He buried his face in his arms, taking deep shuddering gasps of air.

In and out… In and out…

“I see you’re not satisfied with taking the life of the old Dreamer, but must continue to destroy as well?”

He glanced up. The Wiseman was standing at the edge of the tree line.

Wonderful.

The old man gestured towards his feet with a slight nod of his head. Even as he tried to ignore it, curiosity ultimately won out. He looked down.

The grass surrounding him had completely disappeared, transfigured into loose sand. He lifted some, watching as the grains spilled through his fingers.

“It figures that you should be the one to gain new powers…” the Wiseman was saying. “Echoes of a lazy will, in my humble opinion, but it seems they have more weight behind them than I realized.”

“What do?” he said, keeping his attention on the ground. “My powers?”

“No,” the Wiseman said. “Wishes. You’re more than what the two of you once were.” He coughed. “It seems that our roles are not as static as they seem… Dreamer.”

He let the rest of the sand fall out of his hand and glared at the Wiseman.

“If you’d just warned me properly, none of this would have _happened_ ,” he growled.

“Oh ho, so you would have remained in your library then?” the Wiseman asked. “Simple knowledge of the truth would have been enough to satisfy you? For eternity?”

The Dreamer tried to bite out a retort but failed.

“Just go away,” he snapped. “If I have to live in this reality at least spare me the torture of having to deal with _you_.”

They locked gazes, staring at each other in silence.

“As you wish,” the Wiseman finally said. “If you should ever seek my consul, I trust you’ll be able find me.”

He wandered off through the trees, back in the direction of the house.

The Dreamer snorted. As if he’d ever go to the old man for advice. Even now the Wiseman thought he was _so_ mighty. That he had won and everything had gone back to the way it was. To the way that it would always be. Directly above the sun burnt down from its noon cradle, static in its one, sole location. Nothing changed. Not the earth, not the heavens…

But he had power now, didn’t he?

With a quick breath to steady himself, he buried his hands into the sand. He reached down, feeling deep beneath the earth and then out towards the roots of the trees… and hesitated.

Serra wouldn’t have wanted him to destroy them. She’d had always liked the trees, the grass, this entire clearing… It’d been her home.

Of course, further out… well, who cared what was out there?

The Wiseman did, probably, which only made it all the more satisfying.

There was always a balance, wasn’t there? It was time he stopped letting the rules dictate his life and started exploiting them towards his own ends.

In a single pull, he ripped the life from every distant living thing he could sense. Leagues and leagues away he could feel trees crumbling, dying, the land itself morphing into a desolate wasteland. He channeled through himself and then up, up at the sun…

The Dreamer stared at it, his chest heaving.

It continued to hang in its place in the blue sky. For several agonizing moments, it seemed like nothing had happened, that his powers had limits here after all… and then, gradually… the sun started to sink down towards the horizon.


	13. The Tale of Sarah: Part Four

Memories crashed through her.

Her head flooded with faces: Karen, Toby, Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, her dad… and then other dads and other faces. They were unstable things, brief snatches of lives lived and lives lost.

She froze.

In the stillness of the broken throne room, she still straddled the Goblin King, pinning him to the cold floor. Her fingers clutched tighter around the pendant. Jareth's eyes were white, consumed by fear for the first time she'd ever known him.

And she…

…she didn't know what she was doing.

Killing the Goblin King? Taking his powers? His place? No, she wasn't even taking his place… she was _retaking_ hers…

Jareth's pendant dropped from her hand and clattered against the flagstones with a light shing. The throne room was morphing back to its usual configuration, reality - or whatever passed for reality here - filling itself into the fractured spaces.

She fell back onto her ankles, blankly staring at her hands.

Her head buzzed.

She was…

 

_…the proud and ancient Goblin Queen, Taker of Children and Empress of Nightmares…_

 

_…just a normal girl, recently graduated with a degree in shattered expectations…_

 

_…stuck in an ancient glen, with nothing to do but dream and dream and dream…_

 

_…shelving self-help books as she volunteered part-time at the local library…_

 

_… filling the hours between one day and the next…_

 

On the fringes of her vision, Jareth moved to stand.

The Goblin King retrieved his pendant and slowly re-draped it around himself. She didn't need to look up, feeling the rigid slice through the air as he lowered his sword to her neck.

She inhaled sharply as he brought it back to swing…

…and paused.

The sword hung in its zenith, trembling. The two them locked eyes. His face was twisted in a murderous snarl. She stared back at him, blank and open. His hands continued to shake.

Jareth growled and flung the sword away. He grabbed her by the shoulders, yanking her to her feet.

"You've taken _everything_ from me!" he spat through his teeth. "Why won't you let me take even a single thing from you?!"

She remained silent, which only seemed to inflame his fury.

"Answer me, Ariadne!"

She closed her eyes, letting the name wash over her.

It was familiar name. She'd responded to it once, head turning towards its calls, the details hazy in her memories. And yet…

"It's because I'm not Ariadne." She took a deep breath and looked at Jareth fully for the first time. "I'm Sarah," she said. "Just… Sarah."

His were fingers still clenching into her shoulders, but the pain was already dissipating. The pain was nothing compared to the magic she could feel rushing through his blood, racing beneath his skin. It leaped against it, barely contained, and tugged at the magic in her: the end-product of wishes stacked upon wishes, transferring between souls, back and forth and back and forth, growing in strength and variance each time…

They had the same magic. The same core, split evenly across the center. Their battle had only further mixed what had already begun colliding.

And in the midst of it all, the pendant continued to lay hollowly against Jareth's chest.

Ignoring the warning in his eyes, Sarah reached out again. The cord fizzled into nothing as she dragged it from his neck.

"What are you doing?" he hissed.

Sarah lifted the pendant, watching the metal catch in the weak light… and then shattered it into dust between her fingers.

Jareth's face dropped in horror.

"Save your tears," Sarah said. She let out a small snort. "I can't believe you spent all this time thinking that was the source of your powers. That you actually killed her with it."

"I _did_ kill her with it," he said.

Sarah shook her head.

"She killed herself," Sarah said. "And made it seem like it was your decision. There's no difference between the magic and you. It's just…"

It was just an extension their souls. Dreams that had taken physical shape. Desperate wishes for immortality that had clung to whatever surface they could. Screams of solitude, corrupting everything in their path.

Even as the magic coated every stone of the labyrinth, every whisper of it connected back to the original source.

To them.

It could summon unwanted children, could rearrange the walls, the very f _abric_ of this half-submerged world of subconscious imagination. It could reach deep, drawing from fantasies to create breathing shadows: talking door-knockers, dogs, sentient pairs of hands…

But that's all they were in the end.

Shadows.

It had no power over the actually living.

No power to restore life or even heal damaged ones.

"You," Sarah managed, the words sticking in her throat. Her shoulders trembled in rage. "You set this up."

That seemed to snap Jareth out of his prior daze.

"What was that?" he asked.

"This whole… _mess_!" Now that they shared the same power, she knew exactly what they could and couldn't do. "You can't heal Karen!" Sarah shouted. "You lied to me! From the very beginning!"

"Oh, that," Jareth said airily. "Obviously I needed a temptation to get you to cross over and face me. Give me a chance to reclaim what was mine." His casual glance hardened into a glare. "Not that it amounted to anything in the end."

"Don't you get it?! She's going to _die_!"

Jareth scoffed.

"She was always going to die," he said, "regardless of your choice. It happens to all humans." He waved a new throne chair into existence and plopped himself down in it. "I'd advise you to get used to it."

Sarah fought to keep her breathing under control. The situation was deteriorating faster than anything she could've imagined.

The magic of the labyrinth was currently split between the two of them. Sarah briefly attempted to shoved her share back towards Jareth - it had always been a voluntarily transfer after all, hadn't it? - but it remained firmly where it was, itching against her veins.

She was stuck here, stuck to _him_ , with no way of helping Karen and no way of getting home.

_It wasn't fair._

Sarah mentally reached out towards the walls of the labyrinth, the ground, the water, the air… searching for any sort of "edge," anything that signaled a way back to her world.

Across the throne room, Jareth narrowed his eyes. Moments later she felt his mind brush against her with a feathery trailing sensation. She swatted him away, and he leant back with a sigh.

"What you're looking for doesn't exist," he said. "Your friends tried to warn you, pitiful attempts that they were. The moment you passed through that mirror, you gave up your previous live." Jareth spread his arms wide. "Consider this your official welcome to my kingdom. I hope you enjoy your eternal stay."

Sarah managed to fight down a growl but still found herself baring her teeth. Shoving the Goblin King to the back of her thoughts, she closed her eyes and began to pace the room.

There had to be some sort of solution. She wasn't going to give up. Especially not now, when she was currently a lot worse off from where she'd started.

Her eyes snapped open.

"Hoggle said you _have_ cured people though," Sarah said. She ignored the way his eyes rolled at the mention of her friend. "Goblins that were sick… so what if Karen came here?"

"The power that I have over my subjects extends only to them," Jareth replied lazily. His eyebrow quirked up. "Unless you want your dearest step-mother to become a goblin forever?"

Sarah scowled.

"You don't _have_ to turn them into goblins, you know. That was only something I started when-"

Sarah paused, the memory shattering as quickly as it'd come. The sensation startled her, and she had to take several calming breaths to ground herself. She glanced up to see Jareth leaning forward in his throne, regarding her with a cautious stare.

"How much do you remember?" she asked him.

"Remember of what?"

"Just earlier," Sarah said. "You called me 'Ariadne.' You must have had a reason."

He was silent. Too long to be natural.

"Did I now?" he finally said, turning his gaze to the ceiling. "If you say so."

Sarah let out an exasperated sigh. If he wanted to keep playing mind games, she wasn't going to humor him.

"The point is," she continued. "You can take people without turning them into goblins."

"Mmm… and that'd make it, for lack of a more specific word, _better_? She'd spend an eternity in my kingdom as a human with human cares and human boredom and human wants and human despair and-"

"Alright! Alright! I get it!" Sarah shouted. She rubbed her temples, groaning as he flashed her a derisive grin. "Christ!"

She paced a few rounds longer before sinking down onto the stairs leading up to his throne. As much as she didn't like leaving her back to him, she didn't feel like directly facing him either. She lowered her chin down to her knees.

"So what now?" she asked. "We start fighting again?"

"I hardly see the point in it."

Sarah twisted towards him. "Wasn't that the whole reason you lured me out here?" she said, face hardening into a glare. "Aren't you still mad that you don't have total control over the labyrinth anymore? That we're sharing…" She reached down to the magic in her, felt the faint mirror copy in Jareth. "…this?" She gave an experiment yank, and he flinched forward.

He scowled at her.

"Don't remind me," he muttered.

Before she knew it, he had clamped down on their connection in reverse. Sarah gasped for air, everything in her chest suddenly far too tight. She turned, needing to stop him… needing to…

Jareth gazed impassively at her, then sighed, and the breath rushed back through her.

"I think we've both proven just how completely ineffectual a battle between us is," he continued. His lips twisted in a frown. "Duels lose some of their edge when neither party has the will to follow through with the killing blow."

Sarah glared at him.

"I already told you, the magic doesn't work like that," she said. "It's not based on violence. I'm not even sure we could…"

Sarah buried her face in her hands and let out a frustrated groan.

"Then return it to me," she heard him say. "If you do not wish to have it."

"I already _tried_."

"Hmph, it seems as though you don't have as many answers as you like to think you do."

Sarah forced herself to keep her temper under control. "It's a different situation," she said. "Neither of are…" For a split second, Sarah felt her lips crack open - her skin was blistering beneath the harsh Mediterranean sun - and then it was gone. "…dying."

A short, non-committal hum was the only response she got.

"So that's it?" she said, twisting towards him again. "I'm stuck with you forever now and you don't even- You don't even _care_?"

He lifted an eyebrow. "Did you want me too?"

"No, I-"

Conflicting emotions grappled with each other. Sarah didn't know exactly what she wanted, apart from going back home. A storm was bubbling up inside her, starting in her stomach, pushing past her chest, and threatening to tear out of her.

Hoggle.

The old dwarf had been right the entire time. She should've listened to him. She never should've come here, and now Toby and Karen and her dad…

Then _he_ was there, prowling, prickling on the corners of her conscious thoughts.

"Get out," she growled.

"If they were supposed to be private, you didn't do a very good job of keeping them so," Jareth said calmly.

"Oh, like you wouldn't be pissed if I rifled through your head."

"Go right ahead," he said with a smooth nod.

Sarah unconsciously dipped forward before she could stop herself. Her senses were barraged with a completely different of memories, many of which… well, mostly which… actually, they were pretty much all goblin torture.

Sarah scowled, mentally retreating.

"Is that _really_ all you think about?" she demanded.

"Maybe? I must confess, it helps me get through the days."

"Do you plan on torturing me too?"

The Goblin King face shifted, twisting with odd combination of smugness and revulsion.

"Why would you say such a thing?" he asked.

Sarah hurled her memories of Karen's fake funeral back at him, pressing all the hopelessness and frustration as far as she could into his mind.

"Please," Jareth said with a physical, dismissive wave of his hand. "I never actually _meant_ any of that. You were dawdling. I did what I had to hurry you up."

Sarah bit back a sharp retort. He had threatened her family long after their battle had started. Unfortunately he'd also been right about avoiding unnecessary fighting from here on out. It was a waste of time riling each other up when it'd just end in another stalemate.

And if she really _was_ facing the rest of eternity with him…

Sarah groaned.

"This can't just be it though," she said. "There has to be a way for me to get back."

"There's not," Jareth said, sounding aggravated this time. "Your friends warned you that there wasn't, but you were _so_ desperate to press on. To slay the big bad Goblin King and take his powers for your own selfish wants."

"They were for-" Sarah blanched at her choice of words. "They _are_ for my step-mom," she quickly corrected. "There's still time. If I can just find a way…"

Jareth snorted.

"If you say so," he said. He stretched out his arms, smirking at her as from his spot on the throne. "I'm sure if anyone can figure out the impossible, it's the _great_ Sarah Williams."

* * *

If Hoggle told her "I tolds you so" one more time, Sarah swore to God she'd pick the dwarf up by the ears and-

She groaned, rubbing her temples.

Great.

Jareth was already wearing off on her.

"Dost my Lady feel alright?" Sir Didymus asked.

Sarah smiled at her friend weakly. The four of them were sitting on the lip of the main fountain in goblin city's square. Various townsfolk scurried around, stealing glances at their new co-overlord, but left the small group of friends alone for the most part.

"Yeah," Sarah said. "It's just… It's been a long week."

"Humph," Hoggle muttered. "It wouldn't have been as long if she'd just listened to me in the first place."

"Hoggle!" Sarah snapped.

"As stupendous as thou's advice was," Didymus said, "it no longer helps the current situation. Furthermore it is distressing the Lady. And _furthermore_ , I for one, welcome her to the labyrinth."

"Sarah here. Sarah friend."

Sarah let out a sigh and leaned sideways against Ludo, sinking into the creature's deep, red fur.

"Thanks, guys. I-"

Something hooked itself behind her ribcage and pulled.

The world squeezed into a single, one-dimensional point, and then it burst into color again.

Faded, 90s suburbia color.

Sarah blinked, trying to reorient herself before being knocked back. She toppled to the shag carpet floor as a pair of small hands flung themselves around her waist.

"Sarah!"

She felt breath catch in her throat.

Toby was clinging to her, his face buried in the fabric above her stomach. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Sarah ignored them and hugged her little brother back, fierce and tight.

"Where have you been?!" he shouted. "You disappeared, so I called you like you made me promise to and then - whoosh! - you just popped here out of thin air!"

Sarah's gut clenched.

Toby was going to be alone now, and she had only herself to blame.

Well, she had plenty of people she could blame: a certain, obnoxious Goblin King for starters. But blame didn't do anything to help her get out of her current situation.

It didn't do anything to help Toby.

Her eyes swept the room. Toby's room. Already the labyrinth was trying to pull her back, an itch at the base of her skull.

 _No_ , she warned it.

The itch persisted.

Sarah sighed.

"Listen Toby," she said. "I can't stay for long."

He stiffened, detaching his arms to stare up at her.

"Why not?" he asked, lower lip quivering.

"Because…" Sarah fought to think of a halfway-understandable explanation. If she told him the truth about magic and Toby ended up rambling to the police about goblins abducting his older sister, they'd probably cart him away and her family would be broken for sure. "It's complicated."

"But we need you here," he said. "Dad and Mom need you. _I_ need you."

Sarah shut her eyes, inhaling deeply to keep from dissolving into a wreck.

"Believe me, I'm trying," Sarah said. "And I know this is going to sound stupid and cliche, but you have to be strong. I know you have it in you to be there for Dad. You see, I…" - her voice broke as she let out a small hiccup - "I think I might have finally gotten in a bit over my head on this one."

The itching sensation continued, roiling outwards in intensity. A sliver of a path back to the labyrinth, both there and _not_ there and getting tighter with each passing second.

She wasn't allowed to be here, not without a pre-defined purpose.

Not without a child to steal…

A dream to corrupt…

"Whatever happens," Sarah said. "Know that I love you, kiddo. So _so_ much."

Pain shot through her chest. She winced, her knees buckling.

"Sarah!" Toby cried out.

"Just promise me you'll be there for Dad, okay?"

Her little brother's nose was red. Tears were starting to fall, staining his cheeks an equally blotchy crimson, but he managed to give her a silent nod all the same.

And then she was yanked back.

* * *

Sarah's head pounded.

The world was a green blur slowly spinning back into focus as her stomach lurched with nausea.

If the labyrinth had feelings, she'd just pissed it off.

Colors and shapes cleared, and Sarah found herself sprawled on her back in the middle of the hedge maze. Her friends were nowhere to be seen. Not surprising, given the distance in locations.

His royal jerkface - on the other hand - was standing only a feet away, examining her with a blank face and crossed arms.

"Don't you dare say a word," Sarah growled.

As she picked herself up and trudged away in the opposite direction, she felt a bristle of his mind against hers. Her fists clenched harder.

"And that goes double for your thoughts!"

* * *

She stretched her arms out as she slowly traversed atop one of the labyrinth's outer walls.

Part of her felt terrible at wasting her time like. Any second spent not thinking of a way home was a second that Karen didn't have left. Still… it wasn't helping anyone to shut herself away and wallow in self-pity either.

Wandering quickly became her favorite pastime.

The first time Sarah had come here, her situation hadn't really leant itself for sightseeing. There were so many things she'd completely skipped by, sprinting past in her race to the castle.

She was able to walk now, stop thinking, and end up somewhere completely new hours later.

Sometimes she wandered alone.

Sometimes Didymus liked to lead their group on noble quests.

Sometimes Jareth lurked nearby, watching…

….like now.

"Go away," Sarah said without tearing her gaze off the path ahead of her.

"Oh, do forgive me," he said, voice silky and grating at the same time. "I was under the impression that this was my labyrinth too."

"Too? So you're accepting that I have a claim now as well?"

Sarah kept moving, placing one foot slowly in front of the other, as he silently pondered her question.

"If _you_ accept it," he finally said. "Then… yes."

Sarah paused.

His words should've been a victory. She should've been satisfied that he was finally seeing her as something more than a pest to be flicked away.

But the truth was she hadn't accepted it.

Not in the slightest.

This was now her… she couldn't remember how many days she'd been here. Even so, she hadn't given up hope of escape. She was just taking her time coming up with a plan, that was all.

Waiting for the universe to deliver inspiration.

Against her better judgement, Sarah spun around. Jareth was staring up at her from the labyrinth ground.

"Don't you have _anything_ better to do?" she asked.

Jareth shrugged, managing to make the movement look deceptively fluid.

"Other than the goblin torture that you've told me you despise? Not much, I'm afraid."

Sarah scuffed her shoe against the top of the wall.

"What about runners?" she asked. "Hoggle said there were others like me. Well," - she paused - "not quite like me, I suppose."

"Oh, as long as you're willing to wait, they're great fun," Jareth said. "These days I get a summons about once every three to four years. From those… a runner per decade."

"That's _it_?!"

Jareth lifted an eyebrow at her. "Disappointed?" he asked. "I have to say that comes as an interesting surprise. I would have thought you more adverse to the practice, especially after how hard you fought to reverse your decision."

"I was just curious," Sarah muttered.

She turned and continued her journey down the length of the wall, keeping her hands clenched tightly behind her this time. Sarah could feel him behind her, slowly following, but did her best to ignore him.

"And then, of course," he said. "The dreams can be entertaining."

Her foot faltered for a second, but she kept moving.

Sarah knew exactly what Jareth was talking about. She'd already started dreaming. Lucid dreams and kind of… well, fun wasn't _quite_ the right word. 'Pleasantly distracting' was the best way she could describe them. They always took place in someone else's head. Someone else's story.

She stuck to strangers for the most part. It was easier that way.

No matter where she was though… whose head she was exploring for that night, they were always like a beacon, simultaneously close and distant.

Her family.

She'd gotten torn away from Toby so abruptly… it would be so easy to find his sleeping mind, give him a bit of extra, subconscious comfort…

And then it'd be impossible to leave.

"I haven't seen you in any of them," Jareth said.

The skin on the back of Sarah's neck pricked. She halted again. It was a challenge not to face him.

Through the countless lottery fantasies, celebrity meetings, forgotten tests… his presence flared across them all like an open invitation.

Flared always from the center some maelstrom of a nightmare.

"You know my thoughts on goblin torture," Sarah said, keeping her eyes on the horizon. "I've afraid my views don't change regardless of whether the victim is sleeping or awake."

"If you met the people I frequent, you'd know their nightmares come from their own doing."

"Hmm…" Sarah said, pretending to consider his argument. "Nope. Still no."

"That bleeding heart of yours will only last so long before it all leaks out."

Sarah let out a snort.

She started walking again, and that time Jareth didn't follow her.

* * *

Sarah stretched against Ludo's sleeping back. They both sat in one of the labyrinth's few open meadows, making flower crowns for his head.

Didymus was off somewhere on another noble quest for some less venturous denizens of the labyrinth. Sarah had offered to help, demonstrating her increasing magical ability by rearranging a section of the surrounding maze with a snap of her fingers, but the old fox terrier had looked positively scandalized by the idea.

"The point of a quest lays not in the destination, my lady," he'd told her stiffly. "But in the journey."

In the end she'd simply shrugged and wished him luck.

Sarah frowned, examining the current half-finished flower chain in her hands. After the third one, she'd stopped paying conscious attention to what she weaved in.

"Hey, Hoggle!" she said, calling out to where the dwarf lurked in a patch of marigolds, sorting his pouch of treasures on a flat rock. "What's this one called?"

She held the chain up, pointing specifically at a delicate white flower near the end with golden tips. Hoggle peered at it, then let out a knowing grunt.

He still hadn't completely forgiven Sarah for her decision. They kept their conversations focused on trivial things for now.

"Sun-crested snowdrop," he said.

Sarah repeated the name softly to herself as she ran her index finger over its petals. When she pulled it away, it was coated with organic glitter.

"I take it _he_ made this one?" she said wryly.

"How'dya guess?"

Sarah chuckled to herself at the image of Jareth sitting down to meticulously craft flowers. She supposed, though, it wasn't any sillier than making crowns out of them.

After weaving the ends of her latest crown together and plopping it down on Ludo's head with the others, Sarah leaned back and gazed out across the meadow. Peppered across the grass she counted tulips, daisies, marigolds, daffodils, lilies, carnations…

Back home they would've grown in half a dozen different climates in half a dozen different biomes over half a dozen different seasons.

Here they bloomed wildly together, ignorant of trivial things like temperature and soil moisture.

Sarah shielded her eyes as she glanced at the sky. Harmless wispy clouds drifted past like they had all the other days so far.

"Oh no…" she heard Hoggle's gruff voice say. "You're getting that _look_ again. What's it now?"

"Does it ever rain here?"

"Hmm…"

When Hoggle didn't say anything else, Sarah flashed him an irritated glare.

_You could always dip him in the Bog. It's perfect for stamping out insolence._

Sarah shivered, not sure whether the thought had bled through her connection with the Goblin King or sprung from herself.

She wasn't sure what worse.

Squashing the thought away, Sarah made herself focus on something else. Hoggle's hands were particularly gnarled and knobbly. She stared at them as he continued to sort through his treasures.

"All there?" she asked.

"Huh?" He glanced up, then back down at the rock. "Oh yeah… unlike someone, I don't go throwing away my treasures for nothing."

"Hoggle," Sarah warned. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that."

The old dwarf gave an injured sniff.

"Wasn't talking 'bout that," he said. "I was talking 'bout this."

He held up a small treasure from his eclectic collection. Sarah had to squint to see it, but something about it was fami…

"Hey! That's my ring!"

Hoggle snorted. "Yeah, and it's mine now."

Sarah accidentally elbowed Ludo in the ribs in her scramble to get off him, but the giant beast didn't even stir. She knelt next to Hoggle and held out her palms cupped together. Hoggle sighed but ultimately dropped it in them.

"Shouldn't be so soft with you," he said as she turned the old ring over in her hands, examining the age-worn metal. "It's been way more respected with me than it's ever been with you."

Sarah let out an exasperated sigh.

"I didn't just _throw_ it away, you know," she said. "It was for a good cause."

"A good-?" the dwarf scoffed. "That dodderin' fool told you nothing and you know it."

"Okay, well, maybe it wasn't the _greatest_ cause," Sarah said, ignoring Hoggle's subsequent stream of muttering. "But I mean, he's _called_ the Wiseman. You'd think-"

Sarah paused.

That was right. The Wiseman…

"Sarah?" Hoggle asked, his eyes narrowing.

"The Wiseman," she said. "He's been here from the beginning. The _very_ beginning. If there's anyone who would know a way back home…"

Sarah tossed her ring back to Hoggle, shouting out a quick apology before running off.

* * *

Unlike the rest of her subje- her _friends_ , Sarah couldn't sense the Wiseman's presence directly. She finally found him in the outer third of the labyrinth, wandering towards a dusty crossroads.

"Hey!" she called out.

Even if her voice had managed to penetrate through centuries of earwax, the old man kept shuffling forward. Sarah frowned. She had to cut him off several times, hopping left and right before he finally looked up at her with a tired huff.

"Yes?" he asked.

"You're the Wiseman," Sarah said.

"Others call me that perhaps," he said. "Only the fool deems to call _himself_ wise."

"Yeah… great. I'll keep that in mind," Sarah said, already remembering their last conversation. It was probably hopeless trying to get anything out of him, but she'd try her best anyway. She had a sense of the true creature underneath all those dilapidated robes now. "Anyways, I was wondering if you could help me."

He stared blankly at her.

Sarah sighed.

"I'm not supposed to be here," she elaborated. "The labyrinth isn't supposed to have two rulers."

"Is that so?"

" _Yes_ ," she gritted out. "Just like there aren't supposed to be two Wisemen. So how do I go back to being me?"

"Back?"

"Yes. Back. How do I get rid of all…" - Sarah flailed as she tried to gesture to the magic inside her and ended up waving her hand at all of her - "this, and go back to being a regular human?"

"The way back…" the Wiseman said with a long drawn-out breath, "is most often the way forward."

Sarah inhaled sharply.

"Is that literally _all_ you can say?!" she snapped.

The Wiseman silently turned and began shuffling away. Sarah let him go. She was just wasting her time again.

He stopped a couple feet down the path and twisted back around.

"You like to mock my words," he said keeping his gaze level with hers. "But if the two of you looked forward for once instead of clinging to what's already been lost, neither of you would've ever wandered this far off course to begin with."

Sarah narrowed her eyes as he left, a black spot fading backwards against her consciousness. It was how she'd located him. The old man was an empty space, an barren hole in the surrounding maze of life.

It wasn't that the Wiseman felt _dead_ exactly (although she wouldn't take bets against him keeling over any second), but there wasn't anything about him that she could read. There was nothing to reach into, nothing attached to the rest of world around him.

Sarah shivered.

The Wiseman finally rounded the corner and disappeared, leaving Sarah to look around the rest of the labyrinth. She breathed in sync with it, feeling every stone, every twist and turn in the kingdom. Her connection with it was only getting stronger with each passing day. Physically, it was exhilarating, the rush of being fused with something much bigger than herself - to something _just_ as big as herself, the parts of her she'd lost a long time ago… but mentally, it terrified her.

The stronger the connection grew, the harder she knew it'd be to cut.

Sarah was about retreat back into the cramped walls of her own head when she felt a second empty spot in the distance. The more she tried to focus on it, the more it shifted, like a deer trying to hide in a spring thicket. Unfortunately, now that she'd sensed it, there was no way she was going to pretend she hadn't.

She headed in its direction.

Her feet eventually led her to a small and frankly boring house, if it could be called even that. It couldn't have had more than a single room or two inside, the backside leaning against one of the labyrinth's walls to save on stone. A single, plain, wooden door rested in its center.

Sarah glanced around to see if Jareth was lurking over her shoulder again.

If there was some sort of weird trap in all of this, it'd probably be of his making… although she also liked to optimistically think that the two of them were past traps by now.

Well, _technically_ they were at an unofficial stalemate, but still.

Optimistic.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah pulled open the door to the house and froze.

She ducked back, checking that - yes - the house was still ridiculously small on the outside.

Oh well.

It wasn't the _strangest_ thing she'd seen in her time here.

Inside the house lay a gargantuan library. Bookshelf after bookshelf extended as far back and as far up as she could see. The ceiling was cavernous, lost to shadow like an ancient gothic cathedral dedicated to the worship of all things written.

The silence of the books pierced through her. If she'd been wearing a hat, she would've been compelled to take it off, clutching it lightly to her chest in reverence.

Sarah made her way forward towards the nearest shelves.

The ends of each row were labelled with bizarre, abstract categories: the cyclical joy of the seasons, romantic love vs civic honor, lost of childhood innocence, pottery…

She paused, starring at the last one, then shrugged to herself and kept walking.

Eventually Sarah turned right into a hopeful row, "Lost Histories," and began browsing through the individual spines. A spark of hope kindled in her chest. With all these books here, there had to be _something_ that could help. She plucked out one book from the shelf and absent-mindedly begun flipping through it.

Of course, now that she'd found this place, her main problem was the old needle in a haystack thing. Sure… she _could_ manually read through each and every book and eventually get somewhere, but she'd spend eternity getting to that point.

Sarah froze as she felt a shifting void somewhere off to her side, drawing closer.

The library itself hadn't been the second empty spot.

There was someone else in here with her.

Sarah shoved the book back on its shelf and sprinted out into the main aisle, ready to catch whoever it was incase they bolted. Her feet screeched to a stop as she nearly plowed into another woman.

"Oh, God! I'm so sorry!" Sarah said. "I didn't know you were going to be right th…"

She blinked at the stranger.

Her near-collision mate had short, neatly-trimmed blonde hair clipped back from her face. Her white tunic and leggings were clean and functional. A precarious stack of books lay cradled in her arms, piling up towards her chin. There was a haunting severity to her cheekbones.

The woman sniffed and looked down her nose at Sarah, who suddenly felt very small… and irritated at feeling small.

Sarah puffed out her chest and forced her spine to stay straight as she stared back.

"Who are you?" Sarah asked. "And what are you doing in my labyrinth?"

The woman casually lifted an eyebrow. The slight gesture struck a familiar chord in her memory, and Sarah realized that it was like looking at a female version of Jareth… well, not quite Jareth exactly… a female cousin maybe…

"I'm the Bookkeeper," the woman said. "And I could ask you the same about being in _my_ library. Did anyone give you permission to touch my books?"

"No?" Sarah said with quick glance to the shelves around her. "But it's a library. Library books are meant to be read."

The bookkeeper snorted.

"Maybe where you come from," she said. "However, this is a private library. No outsiders are allowed here without my explicit permission. All you lot ever do is cause me more work."

"Oh…"

Another chord was struck, another memory… this time from her own past.

"May I have permission then?" Sarah asked.

"What?"

The Bookkeeper flinched, her stack of books nearly toppling, but she soon recovered. She frowned at Sarah, face conflicted.

"Very well. I guess," she eventually grumbled. "But put everything back _exactly_ where you found it. Or else!"

"Understood," Sarah said, snapping her hand up in a small salute. "Oh, one last thing!"

The Bookkeeper paused from where she'd already been retreating.

"It's just… I happen to be looking for something really important," Sarah said, ignoring the way the Bookkeeper's glowering eyes burned through her, the hollow echo of her shoe as it tapped rhythmically against the floor. "And if you're the one who shelved all these, maybe you can help me find it. You see, I need to find a way to get back to my world. Permanently."

The Bookkeeper let out an irate sigh.

"I only keep books of the mortal realm. About mortals. Written by mortals," she said. "Why would there be anything like that here?"

The woman said it such a snide, "obviously, duh" way that Sarah had to bite back a scowl.

"Alright. Is there an _immortal_ Bookkeeper then?" Sarah asked, voice tight. "Or at least a Writer or something?"

"No," the Bookkeeper said. "Now leave me alone."

Sarah clamped her fingers around the side of the bookshelf to keep from chasing after the Bookkeeper as she strode off into the depths of the library, books and all.

"I could have told you were wasting your time with both of them," a familiar voice drawled.

Jareth was across the aisle pretending to peruse several titles. Sarah groaned, shaking her head at the ceiling.

"Don't you have _anything_ better to do?" she asked.

"No," he said simply. "And apparently neither do you." The Goblin King smirked and nodded in the direction of the Bookkeeper, eight rows away now. "Honestly," he continued, a little louder now, "with the amount of time she keeps her nose buried in those books of hers, I'm surprised she's still capable of speech."

The Bookkeeper spun around, face twisted in rage at the two rulers of the labyrinth.

"I hope you know the reason both of you are in this mess is because _he_ couldn't do his job!" she shouted. "Now leave me alone before you make me disappear too!"

Jareth let out a snort as the Bookkeeper quickly vanished between the shelves.

"Utter nonsense," he said. "As usual."

Sarah frowned.

"Actually…" she started. Jareth was staring at her. Beneath his intense gaze, she suddenly felt two-hundred times less sure about what she'd been about to say. "I think there might be…"

"The girl thinks? Well, that's a development in and of itself."

"Sshhh!"

Her thoughts were a jumbled mess more often than not these days. If she wanted to remember anything specific, she needed complete concentration. Distantly, Sarah knew there were also other memories, other lifetimes inside of her, somewhere, but it was hard to grab at anything more than brief flashes. Whispers of emotions felt long, long ago.

The Bookkeeper… a different Bookkeeper… _her_ Bookkeeper, lying in her arms… his eyes… he was… he wasn't dying because "death" wasn't a concept that applied to them, but rather, fading…

"Sarah?"

Jareth voice echoed across the library, smashing against her recollection and shattering into pieces.

"I told you to shut up!" Sarah hissed.

A sliver of pleasure unfurled inside her at that way Jareth actually _flinched_ in response, but that didn't matter right now. She had to get back to that scene at the pool, the pool in the center of the forest, morphing over the years into a fountain, the forest disappearing as well in time, replaced by walls which in turn had been pushed back by the houses of the goblin city, and then - in the center of the fountain - statues being erected, of a group of stone goblins relieving themselves into it for all eternity, and even just the thought of that was fundamentally _wrong_ , but she had to push past it because he was fading and he was fading because…

Sarah inhaled sharply.

"I have to stop dreaming," she said.

"What was that?"

"I… I can't believe it," she said breathlessly. "The answer's been with you this whole time. With both of you." She turned towards Jareth with a manic gleam in her eye. "You stopped being the Bookkeeper because you stopped keeping books, so that means… that means all I have to is stop dreaming!"

Jareth stared at her, face completely taken over by confusion and just a touch a disturbance. He shrunk back as she took a step closer.

"You've gone just as mad as mad as the pair of them," he said.

"No," Sarah said. "I'm… I'm perfect." And she almost giggled from how true it was. "All I have to do to return home is stop dreaming."

"Are you even listening to the words you're saying?" Jareth demanded. "Neither of us can _choose_ whether we dream or not. They start as soon as we fall asleep. Always."

"Well," she said, briefly weighing her options. "Then I won't sleep."

Sarah squared her shoulders and gazed up at the archways that spanned the ancient ceiling, submerging into the musty shadows overhead.

"I won't sleep."

* * *

"I still fail to see a point to any of this."

"That's nice!" Sarah flashed him an empty smile. "What did I say about shutting up again?"

"Can't recall," Jareth said with a touch of wistfulness. "I'm afraid at my age, memories start fading and then…" He let out a dramatic sigh. "Absolutely no hope for it, I'm afraid."

"My deepest sympathies," Sarah said flatly.

Sarah had managed to stay awake through the entire night, making up stories from the constellations to keep her mind busy. She'd let out a cheer when the sun had risen again, only to crumple when she was hit by a new wave of exhaustion shortly after.

Still, she'd kept walking.

Walking kept her going even as a _certain_ person continued searching for hooks to claw her down with.

Sarah, for her part, was choosing to believe that the Goblin King was simply jealous. Of what exactly, she couldn't quite specify, but it made his presence easier to tolerate.

"Oh, I have an idea," Jareth said, voice grating beneath her skin. "Once you succeed at conquering sleep, you could do the same with breathing. Or perhaps thinking. After all, you're more than already halfway there with that one."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," she muttered to herself more than him.

"What was that?" he called out. "I'm afraid my hearing seems to be going as well."

Sarah took a deep breath, held it, and then let the air go in one steady stream.

She could do this.

She _knew_ she could do this…

* * *

Sarah yawned. Her eyes drooped, shoulders slumping… and then she jerked back awake, world spinning slightly as she sat precariously balanced on the bough of a silver oak tree.

In the back of her mind, Sarah knew it hadn't been her best idea to stop and rest, but after two full days her feet and calves _ached_. Even though she embraced the pain, the one part of her that was still decidedly human, it didn't make them hurt any less.

So she'd decided to take a break. Just a small one.

And even if she fell asleep in her current spot, she'd quickly lose her balance, topple towards the ground, and jolt back awake in the process.

It was just for a bit, and then she'd continue her wandering.

Sarah tilted her neck upwards. The stars and crescent moon hung low against the sky. If she just reached out, she could touch them, move them…

She stifled another yawn as it bubbled up her throat.

The initial adrenaline from her plan had worn off long ago. Sarah had no idea how much longer it would take to work. That was, _if_ it would work…

Nope.

She wasn't thinking about that.

It _would_ work.

And after all, this was only the second night. How long could humans go without sleep? A week? Several weeks? She couldn't get too impatient just yet.

Still, this whole quest of hers - as Didymus had termed it - would've been a hell lot easier if she only had a cup of coffee or something…

That'd be something to ask Hoggle in the morning, assuming he'd actually talk to her. While Didymus and Ludo were resolutely behind whatever Sarah had to do to get back home, the old dwarf hadn't approved of her idea.

Big surprise there.

Maybe though, like all her other past decisions, she'd be able to make him come around in time…

* * *

Something loud and annoying was blaring next to her head. Sarah reached out a groggy arm and slammed her hand down, silencing it.

Maybe she'd be able get another ten minutes of sleep before the snooze on her alarm kicked in again…

Her alarm.

Sarah jolted upright in her bed and stared around her room. Her ugly, faded wallpaper stared back. In all her life, she never thought she'd ever be so overjoyed to see that ugly, faded wallpaper. She fought the urge to run over and kiss it.

Her hands trembled as she tossed on a fresh t-shirt and jeans. Her head kept swiveling, kept glancing every which way at familiar knick-knacks as she made her way through her house.

Her dad was seated at the kitchen table, munching on a piece of jam-spread toast like any other day in the world. His nose remained stuck behind the day's paper as she approached.

"Dad!" Sarah breathed.

He briefly lowered the paper to peer over it. "Oh. Morning, Sarah," he said briefly before flicking it back up again.

Sarah squinted at the date on its back.

Saturday, September 9th.

The morning after she'd left.

Toby came in as she began to pour herself a bowl of cereal on auto-pilot. He tackled her in a low hug around her waist.

"I covered for you," he whispered. "Dad asked and I told him you were staying at a friend's house. But where were you? Really?"

"Oh, I…"

"You two making secret plans over there?" her dad called out.

Sarah grinned back sheepishly.

Patting the top of Toby's head, she whispered, "I'll tell you later."

The three of them ate breakfast and then grabbed their stuff for their routine Saturday hospital visit.

Sarah picked at her fingernails on the drive there.

She'd tried so hard, had gone so far, and she'd ended up in exactly the same place she'd started. Karen was still sick. There'd been no magical cure.

Still, she wasn't giving up yet. All of them… Jareth, Hoggle, the Wiseman… they'd told her that getting back home was impossible. And here she was, sitting in the front seat of her dad's trusty old Toyota.

She'd just have to do the impossible a second time.

Piece of cake.

Her dad was checking them in at the reception desk when a familiar doctor made his way towards them.

"Ah! Mr. Williams!" the doctor said, his face alight. "I tried calling your home earlier, but you must have already been on your way here."

Sarah's dad frowned. "What is it?"

"Well, we had another set of x-rays taken first thing this morning," the doctor started before pulling her dad off to side to speak in low whispers. Sarah and Toby followed like a abandoned ducklings.

She strained to hear. Certain words kept leaping out: treatment, positive, reduction, miracle… Her hand clenched around Toby's, barely daring to hope.

"Of course," the doctor said, his voice returning to its normal volume. "Nothing is for certain, but…"

Her dad's knees buckled as he slapped his hand to his mouth, tears welling in his eyes.

"Dad!" Toby yelled, wrenching himself from Sarah's grasp. Their dad reached out and crushed him in his arms. "What's going on? Is Mom going to be okay?"

There was a hitch in her dad's breath. Sarah recognized the sound: a fresh pull of air forcing itself past a blocked sob.

"Yeah," their dad finally managed. "Yeah, I think she is."

Sarah closed her eyes.

At that particular moment, be it magic or chance or God's will, she didn't care what had cured her step-mom. She could sink into the floor and stay there, all her stress swept away for the first time in a very long while.

 _Thank you, thank you,_ Sarah silently prayed. _Whoever you are._

Her dad finally released Toby, and the three of them went to see Karen. She was sitting up in her hospital bed with a smile, waiting for them. Toby skipped to her side and instantly launched into a detailed breakdown of everything that'd happened at school the previous day. Sarah listened to every word.

It was all so ridiculously normal. All so ridiculously wonderful.

As Toby got into some rather unnecessary details about who brought which snacks for Kyle's birthday, Karen kept her smile but looked over at Sarah and nodded. After a second, Sarah smiled and nodded back.

That was all the communication that really needed at that point.

Eventually the doctors returned to shoo them away. Even miracle patients needed their rest, they said.

On the drive home, Toby, Sarah, and her dad started plans for a huge celebration lunch. They spent nearly an hour at the grocery store shopping for ingredients. Each of them grabbed a course: Toby experimenting a relatively simple appetizer, her dad tackling the main course, and herself finishing up with dessert.

Sarah took about ten seconds before deciding on walnut and double fudge brownies baked completely from scratch.

The ultimate indulgence.

At home, Sarah reserved herself a small corner of the kitchen and got to work. After putting the baking pan in the oven, she and Toby took turns licking the extra batter from the edges of the mixing bowl, salmonella be damned.

Eventually she relinquished the rest to him and retreated upstairs.

She had half an hour before the oven timer went off. It was just the right amount of time close her eyes and let her mind partially soak in everything that'd just happened.

Shutting her bedroom door behind her, Sarah plopped herself down onto the chair by her old vanity. She stared into the mirror for a moment, a giddy smile spreading its way unconsciously across her face, and then picked up an old hair brush.

At that moment, she felt just like her middle school self again, running the bristles gently through her hair, completely content.

"Having fun?"

Ice shot down her spine.

Jareth was in the room with her, propped onto his side as he lounged across her bed. He smirked at her, eyes glittering.

Sarah stared back at him blankly.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "I- I didn't summon you. You can't…"

"Take a moment. Think about the situation," he said. "Despite my usual remarks to the contrary, I have faith in your intelligence."

Sarah continued to stare at him, brush paused halfway down her hair.

He wasn't making any sense whatsoever. The only _possible_ way he could be in her world was if she'd summoned him or if she wasn't actually…

Oh no.

Her horror must have shown on her face. His smirk morphed into a feral grin.

"See, I knew it would come to you," he said.

The dream shattered.

* * *

Sarah groaned. Her shoulders were nestled in a sea of softness, her eyes blinking slowly as they blearily gazed up at a canopy of stars.

There was something not quite right about them though… even as they twinkled back at her cheerfully. There was no inner fire, she realized, no depth behind their placement… They were only cut-outs, or painted on, or something, the blackness of space behind them the canopy of a four poster bed.

_It'd all been a dream._

Sarah bolted upright for the second time in a matter of hours.

She was sitting in a bed that was not her bed, in a room that wasn't in her room, in a place that was most definitely not her house.

"It seems Sleeping Beauty has finally decided returned to us," Jareth said. He sighed. "And she didn't even need a kiss."

Sarah's head snapped to her left.

Jareth was sitting on edge of the bed, his weight partially resting on a gloved hand splayed out in the sheets near her hip.

"You…" she growled, any further words jamming in her throat in their rush to tumble out and scream at him.

"I know it goes against your favorite pastime of blaming me for practically everything that goes wrong with your life," he said. "But I was only a messenger… or would you have preferred I let you dream longer?"

Sarah shoved him back with an snarl and stormed out of the room.

* * *

She plunged into the lake, squeezing her eyes shut as the freezing water enveloped her body. She stayed under for a moment, slime brushing past her bare ankles, feeling the pressure close in around her, before kicking up and breaking the surface with a gasp.

Her body remained shocked and alert for several minutes, and then sleep began to press at her temples again.

Sarah bit out a curse and made her way back to the shore. She winced as she stepped across the pebbled beach barefooted, clothes dripping.

Up ahead a series of boulders lay piled against each other, hanging out over the water's edge. With a deep breath, she reached forward and started scaling them again, repeating the entire cycle from the beginning.

Her stomach, at least, was starting to feel slightly queasy. Sarah was taking that as a sign that she was doing _something_ right.

"You're going to waste all your energy and fall asleep anyway," drifted Jareth's voice from the grove of trees behind her.

Since her initial failure, he'd switched from stalking her part-time to being her dedicated shadow.

"No, I'm not!" Sarah called back. She shifted her hands along a crack in the rock and half-pushed, half-pulled her way up to the next familiar foothold. His irritating taunts were actually helping now, fueling her with an anger that kept her going. "You see, if I'm immortal now, then there's no such thing as wasting my energy. And I'm not, that means there's hope for me yet. Either way, it's all the more reason to keep- ah!"

Sarah's foot skidded against the rock, slick from her many previous trips, and she fell.

She curled in on herself, expecting to hit the hard ground, and flinched as she was caught by a pair of arms instead.

After a moment, she slowly opened her right eye, then her left.

Jareth impassively stared back down at her.

The hooked pendant she'd shattered after their battle was hanging around his neck again. He must've recreated it for himself, though she didn't know why. Sarah resisted the urge to reach up and shatter it again, just to see his reaction.

It was a childish urge.

Doing it would probably fracture the uneasy peace they'd achieved.

Sarah squirmed out of his grasp, giving him only a silent nod of thanks before returning to her journey up the boulders. When she launched herself off the tallest one, a dispassionate sigh echoed across the clearing in the few seconds before she plunged into the water again.

* * *

The pain had moved from her stomach and was fanning out across her ribcage now.

By all normal logic, that should've made it easier to stay awake, but Sarah found herself slipping more and more despite the discomfort.

Jareth had been right about the boulders tiring her out.

Somewhere around her sixtieth jump, any sort of adrenaline she'd had left had leaked away. Her fingers had continued to slip more and more on the rough handholds, until even the repetition of her failures had started lulling her to sleep.

Needless to say, she'd been forced to abandon that method and seek others.

The rose garden had been a pleasant discovery… well, given a lax definition of the word "pleasant."

Sarah was currently standing next to a large rose bush. Every time she started nodding off, she pressed one of her fingertips into a stem until it drew blood. She watched, sharp pain flaring through her head as the droplets trickled past her hand, dripping off, swallowed by the dirt of the labyrinth.

And still she yawned.

Doubt circled in her head. What if even this wasn't enough after awhile…? What if she had to start inflicting even more extreme pain?

The image of her lying on the ground with a several arm, falling asleep despite the agony and blood pooling around, flashed before her, and her stomach dropped.

Sarah's yawn suddenly twisted into a cough. Her body racked with spams, and she dropped to the ground, fighting to breathe.

"You're killing yourself for nothing," Jareth said.

He sounded more upset than annoyed for once.

Through watering eyes, Sarah managed to spot him on top of a nearby angelic statue. His leg swung carelessly back and forth.

"No, I'm human this time," she managed between coughs. "Still human. I have a place to go."

Deep down, she wasn't sure how much she _actually_ believed that. She had no proof her plan would work. It was a just a silly hope, a silly dream… but it was the only one she had right now, so she'd keep clutching at it until her dying breath.

Which, Sarah realized morbidly, was probably coming up _real_ soon.

Her lungs finally stabilized, and she pulled her hand back from her mouth.

It was covered with blood.

A spark of… something crackled through the air, and Sarah realized that Jareth was staring at it as well. He was suddenly towering over her, his face dark with rage.

"Give this up!" he hissed.

Sarah blinked at him him confusion and then chuckled to herself, "And here I thought you didn't care," she said.

He shifted, crossing his arms.

"My thoughts… My thoughts are inconsequential right now."

Before she could protest, Jareth kneeled down in front of her. He reached out to run a gloved hand over her cheek, frowning as he slowly brought it up to feel her forehead.

Sarah had no idea how terrible she looked, but if her outside matched even _half_ of the miserable nausea roiling around her insides, it couldn't have been good.

As his gloved hand lingered on her skin, she could feel it now, the magic slipping away along with her life force. It was running up and out… flaking away from her and flowing back in clumps towards him. If the Goblin King sensed the exchange at all, if he was reveling at finally taking back what he'd originally lured her here for, he wasn't showing it.

It was only a light touch between the two of them, a single point of physical connection, but even that was enough to generate a haze that drew the pain away. Sarah felt herself closing her eyes as she leant into it, breathing slow and even and…

No.

Sarah shoved her hands out, pushing him away. She wobbled to her feet, but her knees gave out after a handful of seconds. She fell back down, skinning her palms against the hard dirt.

"Sarah!"

Jareth was talking, rambling, lecturing…

Unimportant.

Right now she needed…

Beside her grew the rose bush, thick and green. Its base was a mess of twisted stems. She took a deep breath and grabbed the bush with both hands, the thorns piercing through the soft skin of her hands. A new wave of adrenaline shot through her.

Sarah gasped as the world broke into new clarity.

A second later the pain in her chest flared as well. An invisible elevator was pressed down, methodical and constant in the way it crushed down against her ribs, against her heart.

She welcomed it and tightened her grip around the plant. Blood streamed from the crevices between her fingers.

"If this works…" Sarah was panting with shallow breaths now. As she turned to glance at Jareth, she took in his horror struck face and grinned. "Come with me."

He continued staring at her in shock.

"But you can't stand me," he eventually said.

Sarah snorted.

"True," she said, trying to imagine the Goblin King as part of her normal life. In all honestly she'd probably only make it an hour before filing a restraining order or throttling him herself. "But," she continued. "Even a bastard like you doesn't deserve to be a slave here."

Jareth inhaled sharply.

"Clearly your mind has faded faster than your body," he said. "Slave? I am the Goblin _King_. I am-"

"Please," Sarah said. She bit back a groan as several ribs seemed to crack inside her. "Even kings get to choose their vacation times, get to leave their kingdoms, get to pass their crowns over to someone else if they feel like it…"

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I don't? Tell me this then, oh great Goblin King," Sarah said. "What kind of self-respecting king enjoys tormenting his subjects because he has literally _nothing_ else to do?"

Jareth narrowed his eyes in warning, but she pressed on.

"I'm not saying the magic itself is terrible," she said. "It's the opposite, actually. You have no idea how _much_ I craved for- how much I believed as a kid, despite all normal logic, that there was something more out there… something old that went past the everyday world, past the stupid things, the petty things, as old as time itself… And my memories here. My friendships with Hoggle and Ludo and Didymus and the others, I wouldn't trade… I thought I wouldn't trade them for the world," Sarah said. "But the thing is… this immortality, all of its strings, trading one life for another…" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "It's not a gift. It's a _curse_."

Her limbs were shaking now, but she managed to hold his eyes with her own. Each word struck against his armor, making only the barest of scratches… but scratches nonetheless.

"Sarah," he said. "You can't-"

* * *

Her head pounded.

Her mouth was dry, like someone had stuffed it full of cotton balls, sewn her lips shut, and left her to mummify. She tried to swallow, but ended up coughing instead.

A strong waft of bleach hit her nose.

Sarah's eyes snapped open.

Bleach didn't exist in the labyrinth. The mysterious substance only cropped up from time to time amongst terrifying legends.

The smell was emanating from a green rug beneath her.

A familiar, matted, bathroom rug.

Sarah went to push herself up and immediately hissed in pain. Her hands had been completely torn apart by the thorns, caked with dirt and grime. Two matching, bloody handprints stared back at her from the rug.

Using the sink counter for support, trying to avoid putting pressure on palms, Sarah slowly hefted herself onto her feet. The large bathroom mirror had completely shattered, its pieces lying scattered in shards across the counter and in the sink.

Sarah bit her lip, not daring to hope. Not after the last several false alarms…

But those had always been fantasies, her sleeping mind creating worlds filled with all the things she wanted to see. If this was a dream, she'd be lying comfortably in her bed. She'd feel a sense of victory and peace.

Right now, Sarah just felt drained.

She made her way out into the dark hallway. Fringes of light were starting to leak in through the windows, the first slivers of dawn. She had no idea where she was headed - _her room? what for? to fall asleep again? to change clothes?_ \- when a fuzzy outline appeared in front of her.

"Sarah?" it said.

She stopped, toes rooted into the off-white carpet. The figure shifted, and a blearily-eyed Toby stepped into view. He quickly rubbed away his sleep and began to stare.

"Sarah!" he shouted.

Toby barreled forward, almost knocking Sarah off her feet as he flung his arms around her. His nose pressed into her chest. She stood frozen for a moment, then gently returned his hug, careful of the placement of her hands.

"Sarah?" drifted another older, gruffer voice. "Is that…"

Her dad was standing at the end of the hallway. He stared at her, his face pale and drawn. Before she knew it, he'd thrown his arms around her as well, pulling the three of them into one giant hug.

"Where have you been?" she heard him ask. "We've been so worried. These past two weeks…"

Sarah flinched back at that, blinking at them.

Two weeks?

She'd been gone for almost half a month?

At the same time she was stunned it hadn't been longer.

"I… It's…" Sarah stammered, not knowing what to say, how to even _start_ explaining her disappearance. She took a shuddering breath and buried her head back down in the hug, losing herself in the tight-knit embrace.

* * *

The sky streamed with sunshine on the day of Karen's funeral.

Sarah lingered close to her dad and Toby, standing as tall as she could manage while the priest intoned his final words.

Once, not too long after her dad had remarried, she'd acted out one of her elaborate stories. It'd been rather similar to Snow White but with more fighting. After the evil queen's death, Sarah had staged an elaborate burial ceremony, complete with a sacrificial Happy Meal doll, to ensure that the evil would be sealed away for good.

A part of her wondered if, maybe, this was the universe taking its revenge on her for being so petty and childish back then.

Sarah snorted.

She was being petty and childish _now_ , thinking the universe actually cared about her.

The graveyard filled with silence as the priest finished speaking. Sarah stared down at the coffin, nestled at the bottom of its grave. Her nails dug into her still-bandaged palms.

In the end, she'd been useless.

Useless Sarah Williams.

The only thing she could do was stand back and wish her step-mom the best in her next life. If she had one.

Now that the official ceremony was over, her other relatives began to shift, patting each other on the back and whispering empty words of consolation and empathy. Particularly large clusters began to form around her dad and Toby. She stared at them, watching the interactions play out like something from a film.

Her dad remained stoic through the majority of them before his composure finally cracked. He pressed his face beneath his hand and turned away from the crowd.

And it was her fault.

* * *

Sarah had temporarily paused her life during Karen's illness. Now she was gone, it was hard to remember all the pieces she was supposed to start spinning up again.

Her two-week disappearance hadn't helped.

The morning after her return, two policemen had shown up to question her. Standard protocol, apparently. Sarah had sat with them in her family's kitchen. Stacks of missing person flyers had been piled up on the counter, her face printed on each one, staring back at her, piercing her with guilt as she'd rambled off vague nonsense answers about running off into the woods and getting lost and "emotional distress."

The broken mirror in the upstairs bathroom had been equally hard to explain; she'd been forced to say she didn't know anything about it. Which was true in a way. She hadn't been the one to break it. Not consciously anyway.

Sarah doubted that any of them bought her excuses, her dad included, but what other choice did they have? It wasn't like they were ever going to find any evidence pointing otherwise.

And so, after some frustration on both sides, the incident was swept under the rug, chalked up as a one-time, situational occurrence. One of the officers continued to pop by a couple times over the next several weeks, just as a safety check-up, but even that dropped off.

Sarah went back to her positions at the library and local grocery store with only a few whispers. Toby went back to school. Her dad went back to work.

Everything was how it should've been. Or, at least, that's what she told herself.

She was still forgetting something. She had to be. Surely there'd been more to her life than waking up, sending out resumes headed straight for some firm's rejection pile, and shelving books. A single day became nothing more than a way to pass the time until she started the whole cycle again the next.

Sarah slipped a book of Anglo-Saxon history back onto the shelves and felt shiver crawl up her spine. As she looked around the narrow, fluorescent-lit shelves, she sensed the ghost of larger cathedral of books, just a whisper out of reach.

The whisper stayed with her for a moment, and then she forced her attention back to the remaining books on her cart.

The labyrinth been a prison. A beautiful prison. Far more beautiful than anything her hometown had to offer, but a prison, nonetheless.

She needed more freedom than that. She needed…

That night, Sarah asked her dad if she could have the modem for a bit. She scrolled through the Netscape search results, browsing various travel websites, flicking through pictures of exotic, far-off places.

Maybe it was just another way of running away from her problems. A feel-good band-aid instead of a proper cure.

Unfortunately, Sarah didn't care about shrink-wrapped psych analyses of her life problems anymore. She felt like she'd earned that right, even if she hadn't technically _accomplished_ anything yet.

She wanted to stay with her family, continue to help them get through the loss, but every day was making her feeling increasingly trapped. Breakfasts were permeated with a fractured sort of cheer half the time and stifling silence during the other. Movie nights were better, but not by much.

Sarah did her best to shut her heart against the guilt.

A regular person could have gone to therapy, could've worked through their feelings with a professional, get assigned some 12-step program to slowly readjust themselves… but what was Sarah supposed to do?

Tell someone the truth?

Tell someone that she could've been an immortal Goblin Queen and Dream Master and she'd tossed that all away because she'd learned some great truth about terrible shit being a part of life?

Despite her pessimism though, Sarah stood by her decision. She'd regained… it wasn't _joy_ exactly, but a sense of wholeness from being with her family again.

She was a spoiled brat.

She wanted the ability to run, to get away and do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted… but also the ability to come back, to be available when she was needed..

There and back again, as one of her favorite stories used to say.

Problem was, amongst others, Sarah only had $271.83 to her name. It was barely enough to get herself to the other side of the country, let alone stay there for more than a weekend.

Eventually she logged off the internet, opening the line back up to whatever telemarketers wanted to call. She flopped down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Her room felt hollow.

Ever since Sarah had made it back, she'd lost the ability to call on her friends. Whatever magic, whatever connection to the labyrinth she'd had, had been lost for good. Her vanity mirror was just a mirror, and she…

She was completely… utterly… _normal_ again.

Normal Sarah.

She switched off her table lamp and pulled her covers up over her head.

From her reading, Southeast Asia seemed pretty cheap expenses-wise. Hotels, food… If she could only save up enough money for the initial ticket…

Sarah sighed.

She'd figure out the rest later.

* * *

Sarah teetered as she walked along the parapet of an ancient stone bridge. The world fell away on either side of her, vanishing into depths of a mist-laden valley.

She felt his presence long before either of them spoke.

At the halfway point of the bridge, she stopped. As the sun dipped low against the horizon, she half-expected a pair of gloves to shove into her lower back, sending her tumbling over the edge.

Not that it would've matter, of course.

Sarah knew that she was dreaming.

"I told you I would make it back," she finally said to the open air in front of her.

She heard a scoff behind her.

"This is your great victory?" Jareth said. "I saw the funeral in your father's dream. You didn't save your step-mother."

Sarah tensed.

She'd promised herself not to think about that. It was pointless to keep blaming herself. The Wiseman had been right in one thing: by clinging to past, hoping to extend it… change it… she'd almost lost everything.

Holding onto regret and guilt would only cause her to lose more.

"I know," Sarah said calmly.

"You lack a profession."

"I know."

"No friends."

"Hmm, I could say the same of you."

"No lovers…"

Sarah remained quiet. The sun continued to sink, splashing the sky above it with deep strokes of fuschia.

"Tell me," Jareth said. "What _did_ you achieve by going back?"

"Lots of things," she said without turning. "My dad didn't lose his wife _and_ his daughter. I can be there for Toby again. We can all be there for each other."

Another snort. "And that was worth it?" he asked.

Sarah finally turned to face him.

Jareth was standing in the center of the bridge, the dark brown leather of his jacket rippling where his arms crossed solidly in front of him.

"What about you?" she asked. "What do you have in the labyrinth?"

He balked at her question. "You're honestly comparing your pitiful, un-fulfilling mortal life to mine?" he said with a sneer. "To the power I hold over dreams?"

Sarah kept her face innocent as she glanced around the bridge.

"You don't seem to have any power over this one."

His sneer morphed into a scowl.

"I never said _all_ dreams."

Sarah shrugged and continued walking along the parapet. Jareth followed alongside out of the corner of her eye.

"You didn't answer my question though," she said.

"Hmm?"

"What do you have in the labyrinth? What's your favorite part?"

"I didn't answer because it's a foolish question."

"It's a direct question," Sarah said. "And one you don't want to answer because you don't have one." Despite the tie she'd cut between their minds, Sarah felt a flicker of irritation vibrate through the air. She ignored it. "Being the Goblin King doesn't make you happy, so why are you still there?"

Sarah stumbled as the stone beneath her feet shook. She dropped to her knees for balance, and Jareth's hands slammed down on either side of her.

"Do not presume to speak my own thoughts for me," he said, voice stretched tight and measured.

Even as he glared at her, Sarah could see past it to something else… Hesitation? Fear?

She slipped down onto the main walkway of bridge, pushing against his chest to make some space for herself. To her mild surprise, Jareth complied, stepping back with just a feather-light touch. She kept her hand there, fingertips lingering briefly against the leather, before she dropped it back down to her side.

Sarah quirked a smile at him. "Suit yourself," she said. "I'm not the one who waits years and years at a time in the hope of stealing a single, new goblin."

As she felt his temper flare again, she laughed.

"Alright! Alright!" Sarah quickly said. "I promise I won't talk about it anymore."

She resumed her walk. Jareth followed again, this time about a foot or so behind. She locked her hands tightly together to keep them from brushing against him.

"How are…" Sarah paused, biting her lip. "Do you know how my friends are doing?"

When he didn't didn't answer immediately, she glanced back. He lifted an eyebrow.

"You mean you haven't spoken to them yourself?" he asked.

Sarah glanced away, a hard lump suddenly lodged in her throat. "No, I…" she said. It was hard admitting to him. He was going to gloat again. Laugh at her. "I lost that power. I think I ended up giving everything I had back to you." Her chest clenched painfully. "You got what you wanted after all."

It was too quiet.

Sarah couldn't look at him. She could barely stop herself from scrubbing the palm of her hand across her eyes.

"They're fine," Jareth finally said. "Presumably."

Her eyes snapped towards him.

Jareth was staring off the east side of the bridge towards where the stars were just starting to speckle the sky. Sarah grabbed the lapels of his jacket, forcing him to look at her.

"Presumably?" she said, a sliver of warning lacing her tone.

Jareth shrugged. "Why should I keep up with the day to day nonsense of that delusional old knight, his stone-talking pet, and Higgle?"

"Hoggle."

"As far as I know, nothing has changed. Perhaps they are fine. But perhaps they slipped and drowned themselves in the Bog of Eternal Stench. I'd be lying if I told you an absolute."

Sarah let out sigh of relief.

"So they're fine."

She smiled softly, but a twinge of sadness tugged at the corners of her mouth. Sarah had no idea if she'd ever see her friends again. It hadn't seemed as important at the time; she'd been so focused on getting back home, breaking free…

Come to think of it, Sarah couldn't remember the last conversation she'd had with them… the last things they had said…

"You never stop."

Sarah flinched, startled from her thoughts.

"Never stop what?" she asked.

"This. Walking."

"Oh," she said blankly.

Jareth was right though. Her feet had subconsciously begun to carry her forward again. The bridge in her dream was long, longer than her eyes could see. The two of them could go for days without reaching the other side. Maybe weeks. Or years.

"In all your dreams… in my labyrinth…" Jareth said. "You never stand still."

Sarah considered the silent question for a second before the words said themselves.

"There's no point in standing still."

"There's no point in _this_. Where do you think you're going, exactly?"

"Forward."

Jareth didn't respond.

"Are you bringing it up because it annoys you?" Sarah asked. "Or because you're jealous?"

"Jealous. Of walking." Jareth let out a chuckle. "Sarah, my dear, you are speaking absolute nonsense again."

Sarah scrunched her nose.

"It's not nonsense," she said. She stretched out her hands, cracking her knuckles. "You started off watching me from a distance, then switched to watching me nearby, and now you're here following me." She flicked her eyes up at the night sky. "Why?"

"I thought I made it clear that I have no interest in discussing-"

"Exactly! We can talk about Sarah Williams all day long, but the _second_ the conversation switches to you, you clamp down. Why do you think that is?"

"Sarah…" he growled.

She turned back to face him. He'd stopped, leaving a few paces of distance between them.

"You can keep telling me not to talk about it, but that doesn't mean it'll go away," Sarah said firmly.

A dark tension rippled across the air, raising the hairs on the back of her arms. Her lips pressed tightly together against the words itching directly behind them. She knew they'd only upset him, he wouldn't understand, they'd make the situation worse… and then she couldn't control them anymore.

"You're not happy," she blurted out. "I know that's supposed to be some big secret even though all you ever do is kick your subjects and complain about being bored and lounge around like a narcoleptic cat, but I don't care! Everyone else can see it. Why can't you?"

" _Happy_ ," he said, the word grating out harsh and foreign on his tongue. "Doesn't consider into it."

"Yes," Sarah said, irritated. "It does."

He glared at her silently before letting out a small snort. He turned from her, bracing both of his hands on the eastern parapet.

"I think you're projecting your own feelings onto me," he said. "Just because you're never satisfied with what you're given doesn't mean I am the same."

"That's because I know when things aren't good enough! I fight back!"

"Fight back?" Jareth scoffed. "For what? A squalid, miserable existence in your father's house?"

Sarah bit back a curse-laden retort.

"It won't be like that forever," she said. "I'm saving up. I'm going to see the world."

"Are you now?" He chuckled to himself, shaking his head. "Isn't that proof enough the lies you tell yourself? You lectured me constantly about getting back to your family, and now you're abandoning them the first chance you get."

The way he bit out the word _'abandon'_ cut at her heart.

"It's not…" Sarah said. "It's not like that."

"Mmm, if you insist."

"It's not!" she yelled. She blushed, instantly feeling childish at the outburst, and took a deep breath to recenter herself. "Look. There's a big difference between traveling for fun and never seeing someone again. Just because I want to go somewhere new doesn't mean I'm _abandoning_ them." She sighed. "You were human once," she said. "I thought you'd be able to understand that at least."

Jareth twisted around, his nose twisted like she was something disgraceful he'd picked up on his boots while walking in the Bog.

"I wouldn't know," he said in clipped tones. "In my life there was no difference."

"Well, I'm not like that!" Sarah said. "And unlike you, I'm at least _trying_ to take charge of my future, instead of sprawling across a throne and blaming every single other creature for my crappy life except myself!"

"I am the Goblin King!

"Oooh, the Goblin King!" Sarah said, swiping her hand up to her mouth. "Excuse me while I swoon in front a group of kindergarteners. Because guess what: _those_ are the only people who believe in you anymore."

" _You_ believed in me."

"Yeah. And then I grew up."

"You say that like it's something to be proud of," Jareth said. "You'll keep growing, you know. You will grow old and weak and die."

Sarah let out a snort.

"You still don't get it, do you?" she said. "That's the whole point of life. Things die! It's what they do!"

She paused, breathless.

"It's what they do," she repeated.

Jareth stared at her in silence as she tried to sweep her thoughts back in order.

"Sometimes change is good," Sarah ventured again. "And sometimes it's terrible. Sometimes it hurts and you want to scream at the sky and bury yourself in under your covers because it's not _fair_. But… in the end, life isn't life without it. Change gives it meaning, pushes it forward. And if we never lost our old things, there'd never be any room for new ones." She stared calmly at Jareth, locking his gaze with her own. "As wonderful as we think it'd be… the things that hurt the most… without them, we're nothing."

Neither of them moved.

Above the night sky continued to shine down, freezing them in starlight. Slowly Sarah lifted a hand, extended it out towards him, reaching…

Jareth recoiled.

"Such pretty words," he said, lips curling into a sneer. "Would they stay the same, I wonder, if your brother was slaughtered before your eyes? If your father took his own life in despair?" Sarah squared her shoulders beneath his hardened glare. "You try and tempt me, but I will _never_ go back to being a powerless nothing!"

The bridge dissolved in a sharp crack, and Sarah fell, the air splintering into pieces around her.

* * *

Sarah rubbed at her eyes with the back of her faintly scarred hands. She rolled over in the darkness, peering blearily at her alarm clock.

3:00AM blazed out in red light.

She let out a groan and rolled back over.

* * *

The fall months gradually faded towards winter.

Sarah was determined to keep her spirits up. She increased her hours at the grocery store. She helped Toby with his homework when he needed it. She split cooking duties with her dad and tidied up when things started getting a _bit_ too messy…

Karen used to enjoy those kinds of domestic tasks.

Sarah personally hated them, but she wasn't going to complain. This had been her choice. She wasn't going to play the victim, waiting on a Goblin King to save her. She was going to save up the money she needed herself, set an itinerary, travel the world… and then she'd find some way to send a postcard to labyrinth, just so she could rub it in his pompous, smug face.

Frankly, it was mystifying how Jareth acted like _she_ was the idiot when she'd been the one to beat _his_ labyrinth.

Twice.

Each paycheck went straight into her slowly sprouting bank account. Sarah was just starting to plan out a series of potential travel dates, when her car's engine heat spiked on a simple trip to work.

One trip to the mechanic and cracked head gasket later, her meager savings had been slashed in half.

Two months of work. Gone in a matter of hours.

Sarah sulked through dinner that night, only bothering to let out a half-hearted "yay" when Toby told them he'd gotten an 'A' on his last math test. She excused herself from their weekly home-movie night and went to sleep air-punching the ceiling, as if the motions would prep her for any unwanted, gloating visitors when she fell asleep.

He didn't come though.

He hadn't since their meeting on the long bridge.

Sarah still dreamed every night, sometimes of the same places, sometimes somewhere completely new. Every so often she'd get a feeling of being watched, but it never went past that.

Soon after, the Christmas season steam-rolled in with a sweeping onslaught of carols and advertisements.

Despite her practical side telling her to keep it cheap, Sarah splurged on presents for family. It was their first Christmas without Karen, and in the end, money was just money; it wouldn't set her _too_ far back in the grand scheme of things.

Sarah was feeling fine, whistling along with the radio… and then came the dentist's visit.

She'd missed her visit in the summer due to, well, _everything_ , but hadn't thought too much of it. Everything was passing by as a routine checkup until the dentist pulled out a set of x-rays and pointed to some minor smudge of darkness that Sarah personally couldn't differentiate from all the other minor smudges.

She needed a root canal.

Apparently.

Her family's dental plan only covered a small portion of the total. Sarah trudged out of the dentist's office with a second scheduled appointment and an estimate that would clean out her savings back to the $300 or so she'd originally started with.

Sarah sat in her traitorous car for a moment without starting the ignition, letting the cold trickle into her bones. A picture of Angkor Wat was taped to the broken cassette player on her dash. Just a little snipped out thing she'd taken from a magazine back in October.

Sarah stared at it silently before plucking it off. Her fingers pulled on each side, tearing down an inch… two inches… and paused. She stuck the picture back on her dashboard, smoothing over the tear the best she could, started the engine, and headed for home.

* * *

Sarah leaned forward against her steering wheel, temporarily stuck at a red light. Toby sat strapped in beside her, chatting away about the latest episode of Power Rangers that had aired that morning.

"Green light!" Toby suddenly shouted.

Sarah let out an amused snort but pushed the gas pedal down all the same.

Their dad was still shoveling snow for their older neighbors by the time they pulled in the driveway. He hailed to them with his hat.

"Get anything good?" he called out.

"Ask Toby," Sarah yelled back. "I let him pick them this time!"

She stretched, feeling the bones in her shoulder pop as Toby ran over to show their dad the movies they'd rented for the week. She needed to work out more; bagging groceries and channel surfing were slowly taking their toll.

With a sigh, Sarah made her way to the front door, careful not to slip on the New Year's ice. Once inside, she unbundled herself from her scarf and coat and boots and plopped down on the living room couch. She snatched up the book she'd been reading and got ready for approximately one minute of peace and quiet.

The front door slammed.

"I got the mail!" Toby yelled.

"Anything good?" Sarah asked without taking her eyes off her book.

"Ummm… coupons, junk, junk, junk, more coupons, bill, junk…" He walked past the couch, his small fingers deftly flipping through the stack of wasted use of paper. "Oh," he said, pausing at one. "This one's for you."

He tossed it over to Sarah. Her eyes flicked up at the return address:

_Horowitz & Horowitz. 382 Bellman St. Manchester, NH._

Sarah's heart sunk.

She'd never heard of them before, but she knew a legal envelope when she saw one. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what trouble she'd landed herself in now. Her college years had been boringly law-abiding (to her mild regret now that it was all over), and she didn't have any friends that were lawyers…

Or enemies for that matter. That was, unless the Goblin King had decided to suddenly call up 1-800-SUE-THEM.

Sarah shook her head at the mental image as she ripped open the top of the envelope.

A single sheet of paper lay folded inside, printed on sturdy, professional letterhead. Toby peered at her curiously from across the room as she started to read:

_Dear Miss Sarah Williams,_

_I am writing today to regrettably inform you of Mr. Alfred Heydrich's recent passing. I help represent the estate of Mr. Heydrich, and in his Last Will and Testament, it appears that you were named as one of his beneficiaries._

_The complete details and extent of his bequeathment are too sensitive to be divulged in a letter such as this, but current rough estimates place the value of items that he left in your name at approximately $7,000,000 USD._

_Please contact our office at your soonest availability to make further arrangements._

_Sincerely,_

_John Horowitz_

A phone number, fax, and mailing address were listed underneath the signature. The address was the same as the one print on the front of the envelope.

Sarah let out nervous laugh.

Toby crawled up onto the couch and peered at the letter over her shoulder. He quickly gasped.

"Sarah, that's a lot of money!"

"It's… it's probably a scam," she said. Hope could be dangerous if she let it take root too early. Her eyes kept rereading the few sentences over and over again. "It has to be. I've read about stuff like this; they say you've won a million dollars and that you only need to pay a small fee to get it. And then another fee, then another…"

Toby grabbed the letter for himself, clutching it close to his face. "They don't mention anything about wanting money from you," he said.

"Yeah… well, maybe not at first. They probably don't want to scare me off." Sarah frowned. "I mean, I've never even heard of this Mr Alfred Heydrich. Have you?"

"No," Toby admitted. "But maybe he heard of you?"

"How? I'm not exactly famous."

"What about your mom? She used to be an actress, right? Maybe he was a fan of hers?"

It _was_ a possibility, albeit a tiny one. Her mother had never hit super-stardom, but she'd gained a handful of devoted fans during her run. For several years after her death, condolence letters used to steadily trickle into their house. It'd been comforting, knowing that her mother was still alive in a way, kept in the hearts of her fans.

But one by one, the letters had eventually stopped coming.

"Even if you're right," Sarah said, trying to snatch the letter back. "One of them would never leave seven million dollars to me."

"Why not?" Toby darted away as she pounced at him. He retreated to the smaller couch in the corner of the room and started jumping on it. "Maybe he's just really, really, really, really rich!" he said, punctuating each word with a bounce.

"Ugh, because that's not how things work!" Sarah snapped. "And get down from there. You know you're not allowed to jump on the furniture!"

"I can do whatever I want! My sister has seven million dollars!"

"Toby, I don't have seven million dollars! People like me don't just _get_ seven million dollars!"

Her hand lashed out, reclaiming the letter.

Sarah stared at it briefly, the crisp paper crinkled now from their miniature battle.

How much could it hurt in the end, just to call…?

She folded the letter up and shoved it in her jeans pocket. As soon as her dad got back inside, she'd ask him about it, assuming Toby didn't bounce off the couch and run out into the snow with his bare socks.

It was probably a fake.

She wouldn't get her hopes up.

* * *

The wind came off the sea. It pushed the hair back from her face and filled her nose with a crisp tang of salt. Sarah dug her fingers into the wet sand, watching as the grooves she dug filled with water.

She leaned her head forward on the tops of her knees and sighed.

As far as her family had been able to tell, the letter was legit.

Sarah and her dad had called the law firm together and used his knowledge and experience to parse through all the legalese being tossed out in every other sentence. They'd made a couple more calls and then, eventually, a two-hour drive to the office of John Horowitz himself.

It turned out the lawyer had been just as suspicious of her as she had of them. Still, it was hard to argue with the original will. Beneath a short of list of other distant relatives, a pair of first-cousins twice removed… an old, loyal gardener and his son… there'd been her name, written in a tight, cursive script: Sarah Florence Williams, daughter of Linda Ruth Williams.

She'd carefully read every single word of the beneficiary claim documents before signing her name in large, black loops. After that, two separate, independent notaries had signed below.

And somehow, just like that, Sarah Williams was an heiress.

She stared across the water.

Out in the distance an endless loop of waves crashed against some hidden reef.

A part of her was still waiting to wake up. Not from this current place where she knew she was dreaming, but from reality itself.

Millions of dollars didn't just fall into people's laps. It wasn't a thing that happened. It felt too much like a cheat code… magic even…

A sliver of doubt splintered itself in her thoughts.

What if she'd never made it back after all? If her real body was still stuck in the labyrinth, even after all these months?

Sarah squeezed her arms around her legs.

That kind of thinking led towards dangerous paths she wasn't ready for yet.

In the end, she'd hired an accountant and lawyer who helped lay the groundwork for several, sensible investments. Shortly after, she'd quit her job at the grocery store and bought a month-long round trip ticket to Bangkok. She could've gone anywhere with the money she had now, but South East Asia still felt like a promise she had to fulfill to herself.

And now she was.

Sarah pushed herself up and stepped forward into the tide. The water splashed past her ankles, and she began to twirl slowly in the wet sand, letting out a giddy laugh of celebration.

The world spun with her, pastel and faded, until a dark figure appeared in her vision.

She stopped abruptly.

Jareth had returned.

His lips quirked to one side as he nodded at her. "Glad to see you're enjoying yourself," he said.

Sarah crossed her arms.

"I take it you've heard the news?"

He snorted.

"Of course I have," he said.

Sarah frowned, ready to snap at him to stay clear of her family's dream, when everything suddenly clicked like ice sheets shifting into place.

"Alfred Heydrich was a fan of my mother's," Sarah said, glancing down at the sand.

"I'm sure he was."

"He was reclusive. And eccentric."

"So rich old men tend to be," Jareth said. He unclasped his hands from where they'd been resting behind his back. "Still… seven million dollars _is_ an awful a lot, even taking into account said eccentricities."

The answer blared in her head even as she fought to admit it. Sarah shifted uncomfortably and then stared into the face of her true benefactor.

"Why did you it?" she asked.

"Why? 'Why _not?'_ is the more accurate question," Jareth said, rubbing his chin. "The woman who bested the labyrinth has more a right to fame and fortune than some simple-minded gardener and that sleazy insurance-salesman of a great-nephew. I _was_ tempted to write the latter out entirely and grant you a larger share, but, alas, my kinder side won out for once."

"But-"

"It was insult to _myself_ really, watching my victor scrounge pitifully for scraps," he continued. Sarah bristled at the insult, itching to tell him that she'd been doing just fine, but Jareth kept talking. "Just so you know, the old man _was_ a fan of your mother's, so the gift wasn't entirely unwarranted. I just happened to… fan certain things along."

Neither of them had moved since his appearance. The waves rushed forward and back against her ankles.

Sarah cleared throat awkwardly and nodded towards the extending shoreline.

"Do you want to…" She bit her lip. "Do you want to walk with me?"

Jareth lifted an eyebrow.

"Normally I would ask if that was a veiled invitation for something entirely different," he said. "But coming from you, I know you have no sense of duplicity."

Sarah ignored his taunt and started ahead without waiting for his actual answer.

If he wanted to follow, he would.

Still, her feet hesitated after several steps… it was a gamble after all… he didn't _have_ to follow her… it was silly actually, thinking he would… and then Jareth slipped into a natural pace beside her.

Sarah closed her eyes. She breathed in and out, feeling completely… it wasn't peaceful, exactly. This went beyond peace. She felt… _herself_. She was completely at the center of whatever universe she was meant to be in.

Her cracked eyes open as she glanced sideways at Jareth.

"I'm leaving for Thailand this week."

"I know."

"To tell you the truth, I haven't been out of the country since this trip I took to Italy with my dad when I was ten." She chuckled to herself at the memory. "Delta lost all our luggage, and we had to live out of our carry-ons for the first couple days. Dad was so _pissed_. Of course, we laughed about it afterwards. That's why…" Sarah interlaced her fingers together in front of her. "That's why I know whatever happens, I'm going to enjoy myself."

"Was there a point to this story?" Jareth asked.

Sarah knew she risked fracturing the tranquil atmosphere, but she had to say it anyway.

"I guess it just reminded me that that's the thing about traveling," she said. "Well, about most things really… There's always more fun with two."

"You could've always invited your brother," Jareth said impassively.

"Toby's busy with school, and Dad has his work. I mean, I know the money is enough for all of us now, but we want to wait for things to stabilize before doing anything crazy."

"What? Like a young woman traveling half way across the world by herself?"

"That's not-" Sarah frowned at him. "I was talking about my dad quitting his job, not… oh, just forget it."

Jareth tapped his hand against his chin.

"If you're that pressed for a companion, I do believe there are certain services these days that provide such-"

"Jareth…" Sarah warned.

He stopped suddenly, staring at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I believe that's the first time you've ever said my name."

"Oh," Sarah said, coming to a stop as well. "Is it? I haven't really been keeping track."

"Hmmm…"

That time Jareth was the one to start walking again. Sarah stared at his back for a few moments before jogging after him.

"Seven million dollars _is_ a lot of money by the way," she said.

"Really? I hadn't realized."

Sarah resisted the urge to punch him in the shoulder.

"All I'm saying," she said, "is that if you ever change your mind… I don't know, get tired of tossing goblins in the bog… want to try out the mortal world again… Well, I promise I'd split it 50/50 with you."

She heard an exhausted sigh from beside her.

"I thought I made it clear that-" he said.

"I know," Sarah said, smiling over a thin veneer of disappointment. "You're not interested."

"Not only that, you just attempted to entice me by promising money that _I_ gained for you," Jareth said. "Tell me again why the mortal world is so wonderful when you're only enjoying it because of my magic."

Sarah groaned, stretching her arms out to the sky and listening to her shoulders pop. It was useless trying to argue that she would've gotten to Thailand eventually, with or without his help.

"Maybe you'll change your mind when you see how much ridiculous fun I'm having."

"Doubtful," he said with a snort.

Sarah flashed him a teasing smile.

"But not absolute?" she asked, tossing his annoying habit of picking at semantics back at him.

Her smile faded when he didn't immediately answer.

After fifty or so silent steps, he finally spoke.

"Nothing is absolute," he said.

Sarah stopped. The wind picked at her clothes as she stared at him.

"So are you saying that it _is_ a maybe?" she asked.

"Hmm…" he said, and she hated him for looking far more detached than she knew he had to be. "I suppose it is."

She felt like she should say something.

The exact words didn't come.

She stuck her hand out silently towards him. He stared at it a bit, eyebrow raising in question like he didn't understand its purpose. Then he slowly slipped his gloved fingers through hers.

Sarah meet his eyes briefly before turning her gaze forward. The coastline stretched on and on ahead of them, its sky blushed in hues of blues and lavender. She took a small breath, and they started off again.

* * *

Sarah squeezed Toby, burning the feeling of his small hands against her back into her memory.

"See you in a month, kiddo," she said after they finally broke apart.

"Don't forget to send me a postcard with a tiger on it," he said. "You promised!"

"I won't," she said, chuckling as she ruffled his hair. "I'll even make sure to have the tiger sign it."

All around the gate, her fellow passengers had already lined up. Sarah ignored the attendants' first boarding calls and turned to her dad. One last sliver of guilt was still lodged in her chest, even though she knew she wouldn't be gone _that_ long in the grand scheme of things.

"Are you sure you'll be okay without me?" she asked tentatively, not that she was entirely sure what she'd end up doing if he said 'no.' Not now with her toes tripping over the starting line.

Her dad placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"We'll be just fine," he said. "You've done enough for us this past year. Go have yourself some fun now."

"But-"

"We'll be right here when you get back."

Sarah felt her eyes well up. Her dad was right, and he didn't even know just _how_ right. She didn't trust herself to speak, so she nodded instead, swallowing the rest of her hesitation.

After giving both Toby and her dad one final hug, she entered the boarding ramp backwards, waving at them continuously until the two dipped out of sight.

For a moment, she paused, alone, her heart racing. _This was it._ Then she hiked her backpack farther up on her shoulders and pressed forward.

Sarah Williams was free, and the world was waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So going to try and keep this short, but that's the end. This is the first 15k+ fic I've ever completed, so I hope you all enjoyed reading it. :)
> 
> I've had the idea for this story since summer 2011, so it's been a pretty long journey and learning experience. (And apparently in that time Karen was renamed in canon as Irene? IDEK.) I remember in my very first outline of notes, I didn't even have the main Sarah plot, it was just Jareth/Ariadne/Bookkeeper with a final Jareth/Sarah at the end which I'd summarized - and I quote - as "Basically a LONG CONVERSATION."
> 
> I will say I'm still not 100% happy with the way the Jareth chapters turned out, so I might come back during the summer and revise them... although chances are if you're reading this, you found them good enough to get all the way to the end. *thumbs up*
> 
> (Also, shout out to Kill the Lights by The Birthday Massacre for being the unofficial theme song of this story.)
> 
> But yeah, that's about it! If you liked it, please consider leaving a review!


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